William Tell Overture Totally Explained

Everything about William Tell Overture totally explained

The overture to the opera William Tell, especially its high-energy finale, is a very familiar work composed by Gioachino Rossini. There has been repeated use (and sometimes parody) of this overture in the popular media, most famously for being the theme music for the Lone Ranger radio and television shows, and it's quoted by Dmitri Shostakovich in his Symphony No. 15. William Tell was the last of Rossini's 39 operas, after which he went into semi-retirement, although he continued to compose cantatas, sacred music, and secular vocal music. The William Tell Overture is often associated with certain competitive sports, such as horse racing.
The overture is written in four parts, each segueing into the next:

Prelude - a slow passage with low-pitch instruments such as cello and bass
Storm - dynamic section played by full orchestra
Ranz des Vaches (call to the dairy cows) - featuring the English horn (this music is often used in animated cartoons to signify daybreak)
Finale - ultra-dynamic "cavalry charge" galop heralded by trumpets and played by full orchestra. (This is the Lone Ranger theme, which gave rise to the joke: Q. Where does the Lone Ranger take his garbage? A. To the dump, to the dump, to the dump, dump, dump!)

Franz Liszt prepared a piano transcription of the overture in 1838 (S.552).

Media

Finale MIDI located here

Notable cover versions

Spike Jones and his City Slickers released a parody version of the Overture in 1948. It peaked at #6 on the charts and has almost invariably been included in "greatest hits" compilations of Jones' work.

Mike Oldfield released his cover of the Overture in 1977.

The song served as the B-side to Glen Campbell's 1977 No. 1 hit, "Southern Nights."

Wendy Carlos recorded a Moog Synthesizer version of the finale for the Stanley Kubrick film version of A Clockwork Orange.

Victor Borge used the cavalry-charge phrase in a routine of his, in which he played the sequence of notes downward instead of upward--then got a laugh from the audience when he said "Ohhhh!" and turned the sheet music "right side up."

Joey DeMaio, the bassist for the power metal band Manowar, recorded a solo bass version of the Overture for the debut Manowar album Battle Hymns under the title of William's Tale in 1982.

Comedian Anita Renfroe uses part of the overture to back her "Momsense" segment. (External Link

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The galop section is also utilized for most of "The Presidents," a song about the Presidents of the United States, sung by the Animaniacs.

The galop section is also the "Happy Anniversary" song, from an episode of The Flintstones.

A more electronic cover "Tell" was made by Kyle Ward and was used in the game In The GrooveFurther Information

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