Melodies poured forth ceaselessly from Schubert's pen, but he was not a man of the theatre and all his stage works were complete flops – considering which it is extraordinary how persistent he was, how many he insisted on composing. Die Zauberharfe, written in 1820, is no exception, but it ran for longer than might have been expected due entirely to the excellence of Schubert's music.

The contorted story of how its overture acquired the title Rosamunde may be briefly summarised. In 1821–22 Schubert composed an opera Alfonso und Estrella (never performed in his lifetime). In December 1823 he wrote incidental music for the play Rosamunde, for which he required an overture, and chose to use the overture in D to Alfonso und Estrella. In 1825 the music for Rosamunde was published by Cappi & Diabelli in piano duet form. However, not wishing to lose the successful Zauberharfe overture, Schubert renamed it Rosamunde and included it in this publication. It has been thus known ever since, although it was never performed together with the play of that name.

sources

A  Autograph score (1820), in the Bibliotheque nationale de France (Ms. 298); this is the only authentic source for the orchestral score

P  First edition parts, published by C.A. Spina, Vienna in 1854

E  First edition score, published by Spina in 1867

Br  Breitkopf & Härtel Gesamtausgabe, edited by Johann Nepomuk Fuchs, published in 1891. The level of corruption in this score is quite extraordinary, in such a little and simple piece; listed in section 3 below are only the absolute most important of the myriad corrections made in Ub

Ub  Urtext edition, edited by Arnold Feil and published by Bärenreiter in 1975

The problem of Schubert hairpins is a notorious one. At present, the generally accepted way of rendering these in an Urtext edition is as accents, except where they are judged by the editor truly to signify no more than a diminuendo, as for example in bar 140 WW.