Brahms up and down

Synopsis

There are several examples in the catalog of German Romantic composer Johannes Brahms of works that emerged from his pen in contrasting pairs. The most famous being his two concert overtures: the comic and upbeat Academic Festival Overture, and the dark, stoic pessimism of his Tragic Overture.

While composing the jaunty Academic Festival Overture in 1880, to acknowledge an Honorary Doctorate he had received the previous year from the University of Breslau, Brahms felt compelled to write a more serious companion piece. To his friend the publisher Simrock, he wrote, “I could not refuse my melancholy nature the satisfaction of composing an overture for a tragedy.” To another friend, Carl Reinecke, he wrote, “One weeps, the other laughs.”

Hans Richter conducted the premiere of the Tragic Overture in Vienna on today’s date in 1880, and the following month Brahms himself led the premiere of his Academic Festival Overture in Breslau. And the new works soon came to the New World: On November 12, 1881, the enterprising Theodore Thomas conducted the New York Philharmonic in the American premiere of the Tragic Overture, and one week later, the Academic Festival Overture as well with the Brooklyn Philharmonic.

Music Played in Today's Program

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): ‘Academic Festival Overture’; New York Philharmonic; Kurt Masur, conductor; Teldec 77291

Johannes Brahms: ‘Tragic Overture’; Vienna Symphony; Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor; Philips 438 760

On This Day

Births

• 1687 - German violinist and composer and violinist Johann Georg Pisendel, in Cadolzburg

• 1926 - American trumpeter and composer Earle Brown, in Lunenburg, Massachusetts

Premieres

• 1709 - Handel: opera Agrippina in Venice at the Teatro San Giovanni Grisostomo

• 1723 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 40 (Darzu ist Erschienen der Sohn Gottes) and Magnificat, performed on the 2nd Day of Christmas as part of Bach’s first annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1723/24)

• 1724 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 121 (Christum wir Sollen Loben Schon) performed on the Second Day of Christmas as part of Bach’s second annual Sacred Cantata cycle in Leipzig (1724/25)

• 1725 - Bach: Sacred Cantata No. 57 (Selig ist der Mann) performed in Leipzig on the 2nd Day of Christmas as part of Bach’s third annual Sacred Cantata cycle (1725/27)

• 1734 - Bach: Part 2 (Und es Waren Hirten in derselben Gegend) of the six-part Christmas Oratorio, in Leipzig

• 1767 - Gluck: opera, Alceste (first version) in Vienna at the Imperial Court Theater

• 1770 - Mozart: opera, Mitridate, Re di Ponto, (composed at 14) in Milan, at the Teatro Regio Ducale

• 1772 - Mozart: opera, Lucio Silla, (composed at 16) in Milan, at the Teatro Regio Ducale

• 1827 - Schubert: Piano Trio No. 2, at the Music Society Hall in Vienna, by Ignaz Schuppanzigh (violin), Josef Linke (cello), and Carl Maria von Bocklet (piano)

• 1830 - Donizetti: opera, Anna Bolena, at the Teatro Carcano, Milan

• 1831 - Bellini: opera, Norma, in Milan the Teatro alla Scala

• 1833 - Donizetti: opera Lucretia Borgia, in Milan

• 1867 - Bizet: La Jolie Fille de Perth, at the Théatre-Lyrique in Paris

• 1880 - Brahms: Tragic Overture, in Vienna

• 1897 - Rimsky-Korsakov: Sadko, in Moscow (Gregorian date: Jan. 7)

• 1926 - Sibelius: tone-poem Tapiola by the New York Symphony, Walter Damrosch conducting

• 1931 - Gershwin: musical Of Thee I Sing, at the Music Box Theater in New York City. This show includes the classic Gershwin songs “Love is Sweeping the Country,” “Of Thee I Sing,” and “Who Cares?” (see also Dec. 8 for Boston trial run premiere).

• 1941 - Robert Russell Bennett: Violin Concerto, on an NBC Symphony broadcast

Others

• 1936 - First concert of the Palestine Symphony Orchestra in Tel Aviv, with Arturo Toscanini conducting;