Overture (Die Zauberflöte)

Mozart composed the overture to Die Zauberflöte after completing the opera. Its sonorous, lucid construction balances the work’s two opposing worlds: spiritual gravity and comedy. Three majestic chords in E-flat major — the opera’s ‘Masonic key’ — open the score and return as a symbolic motto. A brief Adagio gives way to a fugue. The music also recalls the Prague Symphony and culminates in a coda that restores E-flat major with triumphant clarity. In compressed form, the overture contains the entire drama’s movement from mystery towards illumination.