Decoding the music masterpieces: Rossini’s William Tell, and its famous overture

Although it boasts one of the most famous sequences of music in existence, Gioachino Rossini’s William Tell is hardly a staple of the operatic repertoire.

• Madeline Roycroft
• The Conversation

At five hours long in its original composition, and with a challengingly high male singing part, it is rarely heard in its entirety.

Victorian Opera’s current production of William Tell, a three-hour abridged version, is the first in Australia in over 140 years.

The opera is certainly most famous for its 12-minute Overture, the piece that sets the scene for it. Few excerpts of classical music have been used (and indeed, parodied) in popular media as…

• Decoding the music…