Rossini – The Thieving Magpie Overture (String Quartet Score) – Score Digital Download

In this arrangement by Carlo Martelli of Rossini's popular overture, the storm sequence has been omitted and the final famous gallop transposed up a semitone to allow for ease of execution and increased resonance for the string quartet medium.

The opera from which this overture gets its title was Rossini's first great success in the field of opera buffa. The overture, now arranged for string quartet by Carlo Martelli, follows the customary pattern for Rossini of slow introduction followed by two skittish tunes with attendant long crescendo to tutti.

Rossini retired from a highly successful and lucrative career as an opera composer before he was 40 years old, and although he lived almost another 40 years he wrote very little more music except for some short piano pieces of a dance-like nature that he called Sins of Old Age. Some of these piano pieces were collected several decades after the composers death and were turned into a ballet by Ottorino Respighi - this is one of those pieces, now arranged by Carlo Martelli for string quartet.