“Academic Festival Overture,” Op. 80
According to a plaque on the outer wall of a house at Ischl in Upper Austria, “the great tone poet Dr. Johannes Brahms” occupied the house for twelve summers. Indeed, Brahms had a marked fondness for Ischl. In spite of the fact that it was one of the most fashionable of spas and that he disliked fashionable life, his attachment to the town persisted, and in the aforesaid house, in the summer of 1880, he composed two overtures, the “Tragic” and the “Academic Festival.” Notwithstanding the opus numbers, the “Tragic” was composed first and also performed first.
The origin of the “Academic Festival Overture” is explained by its name. The University of Breslau, on May 11, 1879, conferred on Brahms an honorary doctor’s degree. Though not a university man, Brahms had had a taste of university life in 1853 when, with Remenyi, he had paid a visit to Joachim, who was then at Göttingen, the university bitingly satirized by Heine. There, during his stay of several weeks, he became familiar with the songs best liked by the students. Nearly three decades later the songs were present in his memory ready for use in an overture intended as the composer’s tribute to the university honoring him.
Brahms himself conducted the first performance of the “Academic Festival Overture” on January 4, 1881, at Breslau, before an audience that included in the front seats the Rector and Senate of the University and members of the Philosophical Faculty. The honorary Doctor of Philosophy, so often mystifying and coy about a new composition, described the overture to Max Kalbeck, in the autumn of 1880, as a “very jolly potpourri on students’ songs à la Suppé.” When Kalbeck, a bit sarcastic, inquired whether he had used the “Fox Song” (a freshman song), he replied eagerly, “Yes, indeed!” Kalbeck, taken aback, declared that he could not think of such academic homage to the “leathery Herr Rektor.” “That is also wholly unnecessary,” answered Brahms.
Minus an introduction, the overture (Allegro, C minor, 2-2) begins immediately with the principal subject given out softly by the first violins. A quieter section follows, the melody in the violas. The first of the students’ songs, “Wir hatten gebauet ein stättliches Haus” (“We had built a stately house, and trusted in God therein through bad weather, storm, and horror”), is impressively intoned by the three trumpets (C major, 4-4).
The second students’ song, “Der Landesvater” (“The Father of the Country”), appears in E major in the second violins. The mood changes now to one of frank jollity with the ragging of the freshman. The “Fox Song,” “Was kommt dort von der Höh” (“What Comes There From On High”), is introduced in G major by the two bassoons to an accompaniment of violas and ’cellos. The fourth and last students’ song, “Gaudeamus Igitur,” famous wherever there are students the world over, (Maestoso, C major, 3-4), is proclaimed by all the wind against rushing scales in the upper strings, ending the overture brilliantly.