Academic Festival Overture, Op.80
There’s a well-known picture of Johannes Brahms. He’s an elderly man with a thick beard, resembling Karl Marx or some equally severe German philosopher. A stern, serious man, who wrote stern, serious music. And plenty of his 19th-century supporters were happy to promote this image - a powerful coterie of conservative critics (the "Brahmins") spilt a lot of ink establishing Brahms as the lofty genius of German music, the heir to Beethoven, a scholarly master in the tradition of J.S. Bach. So the professors of Breslau University must have felt on safe ground when, in March 1879, they conferred an honorary degree on the man they described as "First amongst contemporary masters of serious music", and politely suggested that he might write a suitably academic "Doctoral Symphony" for the occasion. Little about Brahms’ public persona suggested that he’d address his Doctoral composition not to the learned professors but to the University’s undergraduates, and turn out a light-hearted overture based entirely on student drinking songs.
Brahms, it seems, took himself a lot less seriously than did his own followers, and there’s no escaping the suspicion that the Academic Festival Overture is just a big musical leg-pull, right from its spoof-serious title (Akademische Festouverture in German) to the mock-heroic peroration with which it closes. Everything is correct and in the right place for a classical, sonata-form overture: "dark" (actually mischievous) C minor opening, a noble chorale for trumpets (the drinking song "Wir hatten gebauet ein stattliches Haus".), a bustling sonata-allegro with first and second subject-groups, a noisy, "complicated" development section, a recapitulation and a grand C major coda (on "Gaudeamus Igitur"). But the musical material is decidedly frivolous; terrific tunes set with affection and a real sense of fun. Brahms even allowed himself one naughty little indulgence; for once, he plays freely with the cymbals and triangle, instruments he usually denied himself. Of course, Brahms being Brahms, it’s not all frivolity – there are quiet moments of real poetry – but the music is never Serious with a capital S. It must have been a delightful surprise for that University congregation in Breslau in January 1881, as they sat down expecting a quarter-hour of Teutonic counterpoint and heard, instead, a great composer setting out simply to amuse and entertain. The students showed their appreciation by singing along, and the Academic Festival Overture has held its place in the repertoire ever since.
R.G. Bratby 2002
Copyright Classical Notes.co.uk 2000
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