Overture

Overture, independent instrumental musical work, often serving as a prelude to a major musical presentation and including portions of that production's music. In developing the form for French opera, Jean Baptiste Lully wrote the first standardized overture c.1660, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart used it as a single movement in the 1700s. Familiar concert overtures, not part of another work, are Tchaikovsky's 1812 and Johannes Brahms's Academic Festival.