Sakuntala Overture

Goldmark made his name with this overture in 1865, when the Vienna Philharmonic under Otto Dessoff played it and a composer who had scraped a living as a theatre violinist was suddenly taken seriously. The subject is Kalidasa's Sanskrit drama about the hunter-king Dushyanta, his forest bride and the ring that restores her memory to him — material that let Goldmark indulge the orientalism he would develop further in The Queen of Sheba. Brahms, who kept a wary friendship with him, thought the overture his best work and said so more than once.