Overture di Ballo

[1] The work consists of a short emphatic introduction, followed by three distinct but thematically linked sections: The version of the score published during Sullivan's lifetime takes eleven minutes or so in performance.

[2] In the 1980s, a longer version of the score was prepared, drawing on Sullivan’s manuscript and including two passages deleted by the composer before the original 1889 publication.

After Sullivan’s death, Elgar adopted and extended the technique in his First Symphony, where the scherzo is scarcely recognisable as transformed in the adagio.

Reviewing a performance of the overture at The Crystal Palace a month later, the critic for The Times wrote, "A more sparkling and animated orchestral piece of its kind it would be difficult to name.

"[8] The contemporary critic Henry Lunn wrote in The Musical Times, "Mr Sullivan's themes are so melodious [combining] instinct with refined feeling, his instrumentation so graceful and ingenious, and his treatment of the subjects so thoroughly musician-like, that his composition appeals as much to the educated as to the uneducated ear".