Poet And Peasant Overture - by Franz von Suppe, arr by Henry Fillmore - Perf by the MCSB

Franz von Suppe was born as "Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo Cavaliere Suppé Demelli" (try saying that with an Italian accent) in 1819 in Split, in the territory of today's Croatia. He was most noted for his four dozen operettas. Indeed, he himself was a singer and made his opera debut in 1842.
He wrote a great deal of music that has found its way into concert halls, motion pictures, and even cartoons. There’s a reason for this - his music is tremendously emotional -it’s exciting, calm, stormy, love-struck, and it is always beautiful.
The Poet and Peasant Overture is actually a concert overture, written in 1854 as a curtain-raiser for the all but forgotten “comedy with songs” called Dichter und Bauer, which is German for “Poet and Peasant,” which premiered in 1846.
In 1934, famous American composer and band leader Henry Fillmore wrote the transcription we are about to hear tonight, one of over 55 transcriptions of this piece currently in print (2016).
Enjoy with us now Henry Fillmore’s arrangement of Franz Von Suppe’s emotional, beautiful, and exciting Poet And Peasant Overture.