Peter Cornelius
Peter Cornelius was born in Mayence, Germany, on December 24, 1824. After studying theory with Dehn in Berlin from 1845 to 1852 he became a passionate advocate of the “music of the future” as promulgated by Liszt and Wagner. It was Liszt who introduced Cornelius’ comic opera, The Barber of Bagdad, in Weimar in 1858; Liszt was finally forced to resign his conducting post in Weimar because of the hostility of the audiences to this masterwork. From 1865 on Cornelius lived in Munich where he was reader to King Ludwig II and professor of harmony at the Royal Conservatory. He died in Mayence on October 26, 1874. He was a composer of operas and songs, but is today remembered almost exclusively for The Barber of Bagdad, one of the most delightful comic operas in the German repertory.
The Barber of Bagdad (Der Barbier von Bagdad)—whose world première took place in Weimar on December 15, 1858, Liszt conducting—has an amusing text written by the composer himself. The plot concerns a rendezvous between Nureddin and Margiana, daughter of the Caliph; Nureddin’s friend, the barber of Bagdad, stands guard. This amatory adventure is brightened by a series of episodes and accidents in which Nureddin (mistaking his friend for the Caliph) seeks refuge in a chest in which he almost suffocates. All turns out well in the end. The Caliph offers his parental blessings to Nureddin and Margiana.
The overture is famous. Its main melody is a chromatic Oriental subject which represents the barber. Another significant episode is the theme with which the overture opens: a tender melody for woodwind and muted strings. These two ideas, and several subsidiary ones derived from the opera score, are developed with considerable good humor and merriment until a dramatic conclusion is realized in the coda.