Brahms academic festival overture

Concert overture by Brahms

Academic Festival Overture (German: Akademische Festouvertüre),^[1] Op. 80, by Johannes Brahms, was one of a pair of contrasting concert overtures — the other being the Tragic Overture, Op. 81.

Brahms composed the work during the summer of 1880 as a tribute to the University of Breslau, which had notified him that it would award him an honorary doctorate in music.

Background

Initially, Brahms had contented himself with sending a simple handwritten note of acknowledgment to the University, since he loathed the public fanfare of celebrity.

However, the conductorBernhard Scholz, who had nominated him for the degree, convinced him that protocol required him to make a grander gesture of gratitude.

Brahms - academic festival overture imslp

The University expected nothing less than a musical offering from the composer. "Compose a fine symphony for us!" he wrote to Brahms. "But well orchestrated, old boy, not too uniformly thick!"^&#