Tragic Overture

The Tragic Overture in D minor, Op 81 is an Overture by Johannes Brahms. It was created in the summer of 1880 in Bad Ischl, at the same time as the Academic Festival Overture in C minor, Op 80 The premiere under Hans Richter, held in Vienna on December 26, 1880, were unsuccessful; also since the Tragic Overture was able to prevail only hesitantly in the concert business. Time- it stands between the creation of his second and third symphony. Your playing time is about 14 minutes.

About the Music

Occupation

The cast consists of a piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani and strings.

Content and form

The Tragic Overture, which was created from a sketch for a symphonic movement, describes the tragic Such as; in the composition of Brahms had his own words " no particular tragedy as a subject in the sense ". In any case there is no evidence for the voiced suspicion, the Tragic Overture had arisen due to the idea of the Viennese theater director Francis of Dingelstedt a fist - music by Johannes Brahms. Brahms himself compared the Academic Festival Overture and the Tragic Overture, as he once said, "the one laughing, the other crying ." It was originally called the Tragic Overture not even "tragic", but was planned by Brahms as a Dramatic Overture. He recognized, however, that he did not see that hit the core of the piece. Due to the (not always common ) Instrumentation with trombones and tuba, she gets a festive, dark character.

The Tragic Overture is structured in the form of the course of the sonata form; For this reason and in view of its scope (duration) it can be regarded as an independent symphonic movement. Between the usual form parts of the symphony set (first and second topic) adds a Brahms evolving passages that are typical of his symphonic works. The implementation is played on a reduced pace and will also receive a joint processing the subject. The recapitulation is obscured (similar to the first sentences of his first and fourth symphony ), ie it is not clearly introduced with the recognizable first issue, but only with the issues constituents and then subsequently with the second issue.

Due to the fact that on the one hand the performance in half, twice as slow tempo is played with a rhythmic figure that appears march -like, and on the other a little later another rhythmic figure appears in the same section, which acts scherzohaft, one can speak of a musical form, which attempts to combine all individual rate elements typical of the symphony in one sentence: the momentum of the first set, the seriousness of a funeral march as a second set, the ease of a scherzo as the third set and resumed momentum of a finale.

The formal freedoms, developing passages with additional flavor like themes and the use of different tempos set for Brahms is a way to experiment creatively outside the laws of the symphony. However, the claim of the form is guaranteed; Moreover, the work clearly limits the term " Overture " towards the symphonic poem from that was popular among his contemporaries and more formal freedoms allowed. As such, the Tragic Overture is despite their compositional characteristics in line with the existing conflicting tradition.