“TRAGIC” OVERTURE, OP. 81
The Tragic overture is among the greatest works of Brahms; by its structure, and by its depths of feeling. There is no hysterical outburst; no shrieking in despair; no peevish or sullen woe; no obtruding suggestion of personal suffering. The German commentators have cudgeled their brains to find a hero in the music: Hamlet, Faust, this one, that one. They have labored in vain. The soul of Tragedy speaks in the music.
Although the Tragic overture is Op. 81 and the Academic is Op. 80, the Tragic was composed and performed before the Academic: it was performed for the first time at the Fourth Philharmonic Concert at Vienna in 1880.
The Tragic overture may be said to be a musical characterization of the principles of tragedy as laid down by Aristotle or Lessing; it mirrors, as Reimann puts it, the grandeur, the loftiness, the deep earnestness, of tragic character; “calamities, which an inexorable fate has imposed on him, leave the hero guilty; the tragic downfall atones for the guilt; this downfall, which by purifying the passions and awakening fear and pity works on the race at large, brings expiation and redemption to the hero himself.” Or as Dr. Dieters says: “In this work we see a strong hero battling with an iron and relentless fate; passing hopes of victory cannot alter an impending destiny. We do not care to inquire whether the composer had a special tragedy in his mind, or if so, which one; those who remain musically unconvinced by the unsurpassably powerful theme, would not be assisted by a particular suggestion.”[21]
The overture was composed in 1880 and published in 1881.
ACADEMIC FESTIVAL OVERTURE, OP. 80
Johannes Brahms desired to give thanks publicly to the University of Breslau because he had received from the illustrious dignitaries of that university the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. How best could he express his thanks in music? By something stately, pompous? Or by something profound and cryptic? Brahms acted with shrewdness in the matter; he took for his thematic material well-known students’ songs. These songs are familiar throughout Germany, and it is not as though a composer called upon, for instance, to write an appropriate overture for an approaching jubilee at Yale should take songs peculiar to that college; nor is it as though a composer should take “Eli Yale” and “Fair Harvard” and a Dartmouth or Williams song for his themes. Wherever Brahms’ overture is heard by a German student, whether of Heidelberg, Bonn, Berlin, or Breslau, the themes are old friends and common property.
But where is the reckless gayety of student life in this overture? Much of it is dry, on account of the orchestration. For even when you admit that Brahms was a master builder of musical structures, you are not thereby estopped from saying in clear, bell-like tones that he was also color deaf.
The Brahmsite turns triumphantly to the Fuchslied—“Was kommt dort von der Höh”—which is introduced by two bassoons, accompanied by ’cellos and violas pizzicati. “There! there!” he exclaims, “that is excruciatingly funny. Only a master, only a Johannes could make so easily a master stroke!” If you cross-examine him you will find that the humor consists in the choice of instruments.