Talk:William Tell Overture

Sounds quality
Could someone please enhance the audio file to get rid of the background noise? -jcwacky


 * Some people who present historical recordings prefer not to clean them up too much. I'm not really sure about our practice.  Also, although I'm not a sound engineer, I'm not sure whether this is the kind of noise which is easy to remove. Kingdon (talk) 18:20, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Year
What year was it written? Thanks, qqtpie —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.2.133.250 (talk) 18:14, 29 September 2007 (UTC)


 * All this is at William Tell (opera). I'm not sure whether it is good to duplicate this kind of information here. Kingdon (talk) 18:20, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Part 2 clip
I suspect this clip was pulled from Project Gutenberg here which lists the clip as "Part 2" but the clip seems to have the Finale as well. I'm not familiar enough about where each part begins and ends; perhaps a Rossini buff could check. Penguinwithin (talk) 18:13, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Last part
I was under the impression that the last part of the piece was meant to signify a fox hunt more than a cavalry charge. Did Rossini ever mention what is was supposed to be? — Loadmaster (talk) 21:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Most any writeup about the piece will say it's a cavalry charge. That's the Swiss cavalry, of course, not John Wayne in Fort Apache. There's another work by another composer, I forget what and who, which is a more leisurely paced gallop and is often used in cartoons and the like where a fox hunt is going on. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 23:20, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Light Cavalry Overture, by Franz von Suppé is the one I'm thinking of. I'm sure he'd be thrilled at how his music was used. Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? 23:39, 5 August 2008 (UTC)

Honda Civic Ad
Despite its attempts to celebrate scientific accuracy in a musical medium, the audio from the Honda ad departs from the signature melody of the Overture, as if the presenters misread a full score. Their video sounds like a lazy mistake. O0drogue0o (talk) 10:15, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Featured sound candidates/William Tell Overture
Please see Featured sound candidates/William Tell Overture about the brass band file just added to this article. -- Klein zach  02:34, 15 April 2011 (UTC)

Edits April 22, 2011
I've copyedited and added to the article as well as adding sources which were previously non-existent. Since drive-by "popular culture" items will keep popping up in this article given the overture's frequent use in advertising, cartoons, etc. (a widely covered subject), I have added a few key examples, all of which are referenced to published books, several of them academic publications. To keep the article from returning to its previous example/trivia cruft state, I propose to remove any future additions which are not referenced with an inline citation to a reliable source verifying both the notability of the subject using the overture and the notability of the use itself. I've also re-added the brass band version of the piece, now contextualized in the "Cultural references" section. Voceditenore (talk) 10:37, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

What about "The Flintstones"? I hear "Happy Anniversary" at a lot of anniversary parties! My references: Another cartoon series that added lyrics was "The Flintstones," in the episode "The Hot Piano," from February 3, 1961, with the song being renamed "Happy Anniversary." (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knp9-GY6fHE Also mentioned in the book "The Flintstones: A Modern Stone Age Phenomenon," by T.R. Adams, copyright 1994.)

"Without thinking of the Lone Ranger"
There are surely much earlier references to the saying defining a person of a certain type (intellectual, snob, ...) as one who "could hear the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger". I have a memory of this going back to my youth. Yes, I know that memory is fallible, and certainly not a reliable source for Wikipedia, but surely someone can find a much earlier reference. TomS TDotO (talk) 17:10, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
 * I agree. Another editor suggested adding it and provided the reference, but I was really of two minds about it. Anyhow, I've managed to find an earlier attribution (1962) to Jack Guinn writing in the Denver Post and have now used his quote for the article. I've mentioned in the footnote the later variations by Dan Rather and David Frost. All have references. Voceditenore (talk) 14:36, 4 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Though where that put me I don't know, I always sing the theme song to the 1958 TV series the Adventures of William Tell MidlandLinda (talk) 12:15, 6 April 2012 (UTC)
 * The problem with this quote is it only really works for a specific age group. I, for example, am uncultured enough that when I heard it in the 2013 Lone Ranger movie I referred to it as "that galloping music" but also too young to know it was the theme to the original TV show. (I actually came to this page to find out, and to find out where it originated.) Danikat (talk) 20:53, 2 October 2014 (UTC)

I'm old enough to have learned where the Lone Ranger takes his garbage: to the dump, to the dump, to the dump-dump-dump... 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:313A (talk) 08:10, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

"A Clockwork Orange"
I think there should be an addition in the Cultural References section, about how the finale was used in A Clockwork Oragne. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Johannmaximus (talk • contribs) 02:43, 11 February 2013 ‎


 * Thanks for the suggestion. I've gone ahead and added it as I could find a reliable source which discusses its use in the film in some depth. The problem with these "cultural references" sections, is that we get a lot of drive-by additions of completely unreferenced "I heard this in X". In my view, to be included in such a section, the piece must play such a significant role in a sound track (or similar) that it has been noted and actually written about, as was the case here. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 06:34, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * The overture's finale has been used in countless cultural references. One unusual thing about this film is that it also employs the first section of the overture, later in the film when Alex is wandering around town, freed from prison but seriously depressed. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:07, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Interesting. Do feel free to expand on that in the article, referenced of course :). Re the "countless cultural references", yes, most well-known pieces of classical music end up in snippets in myriads of films, commercials, video games, whatever, as background music. That's why it's important to have independent references that attest to the significance of their use in a particular work, otherwise the article is simply overwhelmed with a load of trivia that does nothing to increase the reader's understanding of the work. Voceditenore (talk) 13:21, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * Much easier said than done. :) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 13:30, 11 February 2013 (UTC)
 * I found a reference for the use in the later scene in Clockwork. See
 * Rasmussen, Randy (2005). Stanley Kubrick: Seven Films Analyzed, p. 157. McFarland
 * So, go for it. I might get around to it myself in a couple of days, if no one else does. Best, Voceditenore (talk) 14:40, 11 February 2013 (UTC)

Transcription for "brass band"
Based on my listening to it, it sounds more like a wind octet (because there are woodwinds in there; in fact, the clarinets completely dominate the brass instruments) rather than a brass band. Am I right?--Jasper Deng (talk) 08:19, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
 * It seems like I'm not the only person, per an IP user's comment at Featured sound candidates/William Tell Overture. If no-one objects it, I'm going to remove the "brass band" part (since we can't prove that it's brass band).--Jasper Deng (talk) 06:26, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
 * In fact, per the PDF at the official site, it's explicitly stated to be a wind octet, so I'm changing that.--Jasper Deng (talk) 06:30, 5 December 2013 (UTC)

The Old Mill?
Does anyone have an excerpt from David Tietyan's book that attributes any part of The Old Mill to Rossini? According to The Old Mill, the only song mentioned is Strauss' The Gypsy Baron. And having watched the short in full here, The Old Mill, there is no part of Rossini's Overture that I can recognize.

173.227.48.160 (talk) 18:54, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

March of the Swiss Soldiers
I had never heard that title before. I had thought that the "Lone Ranger" section of the overture was usually called "Call to Arms". But I had trouble finding references for that. Am I confused? 2601:648:8202:96B0:0:0:0:313A (talk) 08:19, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Jokes
"Its most famous use in that respect is as the theme music for The Lone Ranger; that usage has become so famous that the term "intellectual" has been defined as "a man who can listen to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger"" - an awkward anecdotal joke which does not belong here. Lone Ranger should be barely known outside the US. Rebentisch (talk) 21:02, 16 October 2022 (UTC)


 * The radio show, and later the TV show, were very culturally prominent in the United States from the mid-1930s through at least the 1960s... AnonMoos (talk) 13:25, 17 October 2022 (UTC)