On March 3rd 1826 Carl Maria Weber left Calais on his way to England where he was preparing for the premiere of his opera Oberon. As always the case, he was setting off without having fully completed the score. At Covent Garden, many important questions of detail could only be settled once Weber had heard each singer's individual voice and style. He only finished the overture three days before the first performance on April 12th.

The themes of the overture are all drawn from the opera itself, but in spite of this, it follows a traditional sonata form. The overture commences with a slow introduction, heralded by the horn and its marking Adagio sostenuto ed il tutto pianissimo possibile seems to lead us straight to Oberon's world of fairies. We then hear the march of the king's court approaching. In the main theme of the principal section, which leaps upwards like a rocket, we can recognise the later quartet, the clarinet subsidiary theme quoting the central section from Hyon's love aria. Finally the closing theme – following the “Ocean aria” sung by Hyon's partner Rezia, seems a return to atmosphere of the principal theme, only with a more restrained dynamic.

There are few pieces of music more sprightly or relaxed than the Oberon overture. Weber himself was only to live for a further month and a half after the opera's premiere: the day before he planned to return home on June 5th, he died in London. It seems that the English climate exacerbated his chronic lung problems, and the overture was written while he was feeling very poorly indeed. Looking at his diary entry for April 12th, he writes: “I am absolutely not for this world!”. Those with a romantic turn of mind would like to believe that this explains Oberon's ethereal other-worldly music.