Recently re-listened to Overture 1928, and was struck by how brilliantly it works, both as a true overture, and as a finely constructed piece of music.
Yeah, I've listened to it a million times. But in watching Doug Helvering's reaction video to the entire SFAM album, this was the first time in a very long time that I really listened to it with a critical ear. Since SFAM, a lot of albums I have listened to have overtures. Neal Morse is perhaps the most prolific writer of overtures in recent memory. But what often jumps out at me in overtures in progressive, or metal, or rock music in general is that the overtures often are great at introducing the musical themes of an album (which is the whole point of an overture), but aren't great pieces of music on their own and sound kind of like they are just copy-and-paste with hastily-contructed transitions. In contrast, Overture 1928 not only does a fantastic job of introducing major musical themes (and linking back to themes from Metropolis pt. 1), but it also does some other things particularly well: (1) it internally reuses musical ideas and evolves them, and (2) it revisits musical themes in a way that make it feel like a cohesive piece of music on its own rather than a collection of "copy/paste; insert transition"; and (3) it has great transitions that sound logical rather than abrupt.
So, maybe it doesn't need its own thread. But I have a newfound appreciation and wanted to throw it out there if others are inclined to discuss.
Topic: Overture 1928 (Read 1723 times)
