"The Impresario" ("Der Schauspieldirektor") was written in response to a commission by Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II as a competition piece pitting Italian opera against the traditional German singspiel. The competing opera was the opera buffa "Prima la musica, poi le parole" ("First the Music, Then the Words") by Antonio Salieri. The first performance of "The Impresario" and the Salieri operas was on February 7, 1786 at the Schonnbrunn Palace. There are only four numbers in the opera, the rest is made up of spoken dialogue. The musical content consists of about 30 minutes of music. The overture itself is a tour de force combining the merriment and buzzing surrounding an operatic production and the tensions arising from it as well as a sense of sprightliness and gaiety surrounding the music. The central section is entirely fugal, as if Mozart was showing that he, too, could write a complex fugue with the energy and vigor found in Johann Sebastian Bach's familiar fugues. All of this is combined into an impish overture which bridges the serious fugue with the joy of Mozart at his finest as we find in this performance by Sir Colin Davis and the Royal Philharmonic of 1961.