Brahms: Academic Festival Overture (Score)

This is Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture

Performed by: NBC Symphony Orchestra

Conducted by: Arturo Toscanini

Academic Festival Overture by Johannes Brahms, was one of a pair of contrasting concert overtures, the other being the Tragic Overture. 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 philosophy. 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 conductor Bernhard Scholz, who had nominated him for the degree, convinced him that protocol required him to make a grander gesture of gratitude. 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!". I hope you enjoy Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture.

The score in this video is in the public domain, and was downloaded from imslp.org

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