Procrastinating

This is certainly a fun meme and it is even close to being true. According to his wife Constanze, he wrote the overture the night before, while consuming large amounts of punch, finishing it by seven the next morning, when the copyist arrived to collect it. (Reference, The Complete Operas of Mozart by Charles Osborne, pp. 258-9.) In the same book we learn that the librettist, Da Ponte, wrote the libretto while consuming Tokay and snuff. Those were certainly the days!

Let's hear that overture. This is the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra with Manfred Honeck, conductor.