By habit, Johannes Brahms often composed pairs of contrasting works in the same genre.
Brahms’ two concert overtures, written during the summer of 1880, follow this pattern of compositional yin and yang. The impetus for the witty and celebratory Academic Festival Overture, a collection of frolicking student songs intricately developed, was an honorary doctorate, awarded to the composer by the University of Breslau. Tragic Overture, Op. 81 formed the companion piece. Describing the two works, Brahms claimed that “one weeps, the other laughs.” From his holiday location in the Austrian Alps, Brahms wrote to his publisher, “I simply could not refuse my melancholy nature the satisfaction of composing an overture for tragedy.”
Tragic Overture begins with two ferocious musical hammer blows, the second of which reverberates with open string fifths. The first theme emerges out of the shadows. Its quiet anxiety soon gives way to a tumultuous eruption. Set in the haunting and melancholy key of D minor, the overture unfolds as a free-standing symphonic movement. The exposition is made up of three themes which return in reverse order in the recapitulation. The development section slows to half speed. Only briefly do we find ourselves in the sunlight of the relative key of F major. Horn calls ring out. The trombones evoke supernatural mystery. A creeping march is propelled forward with rigid dotted rhythms. At moments, we sense the specter of Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture.
Brahms scholar Walter Niemann wrote, “The fleeting touches of thrilling, individual emotion in this overture are not to be found in conflict and storm, but in the crushing loneliness of terrifying and unearthly silences in what have been called ‘dead places.'”
Herbert Blomstedt leads Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in this thrilling concert performance:
Five Great Recordings
- Brahms: Tragic Overture, Op. 81, Herbert Blomstedt, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig NativeDSD
- Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic
- Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic
- Leonard Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic
- Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra