About this edition
Antonín Dvořák's Othello is the towering final panel of the composer's concert-overture triptych originally conceived under the collective title Nature, Life and Love, following In Nature's Realm (Op. 91) and Carnival (Op. 92). Where its companions celebrate the natural world and earthly exuberance, Othello turns to the ruinous power of jealous love: Dvořák annotated his manuscript with marginal notes tracing scenes from Shakespeare's tragedy, from Desdemona's prayer to the murder and Othello's suicide. The "nature" motto that binds all three overtures returns here transformed into something anguished and fateful, making this one of the darkest and most dramatically concentrated orchestral scores of Dvořák's maturity, completed in 1892 and premiered in Prague under his own baton shortly before he sailed for America.
This volume reproduces the first edition issued by N. Simrock of Berlin in 1894 (plate 10106). Simrock had been Dvořák's principal publisher since the Slavonic Dances of 1878, and it was Simrock that separated the trilogy into its individual opus numbers, 91, 92 and 93. Engraved and printed during the composer's lifetime, within the publishing relationship that carried nearly all of his major orchestral works into print, the Simrock first edition remains the essential reference text for the overture and the source from which later editions and performing materials descend.
About this edition:
- Full orchestral score (conductor's score), complete
- Page size: 8.5 x 11 inches
- Reproduced from a public domain historical edition
- Published by Purple 4R Publishing
This printing faithfully reproduces a historical score that now resides in the public domain, so a classic of the Romantic orchestral repertoire can stay within easy reach of conductors, players, students, and scholars alike. We hope it serves you well on the podium, at the stand, and in the study.
