The Wizard of Oz Concert Suite

The suite moves through the film's story in music rather than words, so listeners can follow Dorothy's journey by ear. It typically opens with the wistful, searching music associated with the Kansas farm scenes, setting a plain, homespun tone before the storm arrives. From there the orchestra conjures the shift into Oz's Technicolor world, with brighter orchestration, quicker tempos, and more color in the winds and brass standing in for the film's change from black-and-white to color. The heart of the suite is "Over the Rainbow," the melody most listeners are waiting for, usually given first to a solo instrument over a hushed accompaniment before the full orchestra takes it up. Later sections bring back the bouncy, march-like tunes tied to the Munchkins and the Yellow Brick Road, full of short repeated phrases and light percussion. A darker, brass-heavy passage usually represents the Wicked Witch and the more menacing turns of the story, before the suite gathers itself into a warm, full-orchestra restatement of the rainbow theme at the close. Because the arrangement is drawn from film cues, transitions can be quick, moving from tune to tune the way the movie itself does.

Harold Arlen wrote the songs for "The Wizard of Oz" with lyricist E. Y. Harburg for the 1939 MGM film, working alongside orchestrators and arrangers who turned the songs into the picture's underscore. "Over the Rainbow," sung by Judy Garland, became the film's most enduring number and later a standard. Decades after the movie's release, conductor and arranger John Mauceri assembled a concert suite drawing on Arlen's songs and the film's orchestral score, allowing orchestras to present the music of "The Wizard of Oz" as a self-contained concert piece rather than as a film screening with live accompaniment. Since then the suite has become a familiar part of orchestras' family and pops programming, offering audiences the film's melodies in a purely orchestral setting.