Brahms chose the title “Tragic” to emphasize the turbulent, tormented character of the piece, in essence a free-standing symphonic movement, in contrast to the mirthful ebullience of a companion piece he wrote the same year, the Academic Festival Overture. Despite its name, the Tragic Overture does not follow any specific dramatic program. Brahms was not very interested in musical storytelling and was more concerned with conveying and eliciting emotional impressions. He summed up the effective difference between the two overtures when he declared “one laughs while the other cries.” Brahms quotes some material from the last movement of the Second Symphony in this overture.
The Tragic Overture comprises three main sections, all in the key of D minor.
Theorists have disagreed in analyzing the form of the piece: Jackson finds Webster’s multifarious description rather obscurist and prefers to label the work’s form as a “reversed sonata design” in which the second group is recapitulated before the first, with Beethoven‘s Coriolan Overture as a possible formal model.(Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragic_Overture)
The subject of the music and dramatic narrative is the life and heroism of a 16th-century Dutch nobleman, the Count of Egmont. It was composed during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, at a time when the French Empire had extended its domination over most of Europe. Beethoven had famously expressed his great outrage over Napoleon Bonaparte’s decision to crown himself Emperor in 1804, furiously scratching out his name in the dedication of the Eroica Symphony. In the music for Egmont, Beethoven expressed his own political concerns through the exaltation of the heroic sacrifice of a man condemned to death for having taken a valiant stand against oppression. The Overture later became an unofficial anthem of the 1956 Hungarian revolution.
Beethoven composed Klärchen’s songs, “Die Trommel gerühret” (“The drum is a-stirring”) and “Freudvoll und leidvoll” (“Joyful and woeful”), with the Austrian actress Antonie Adamberger specifically in mind. She would later repeatedly and enthusiastically recall her collaboration with him.[2]
The music was greeted with eulogistic praise, in particular by E.T.A. Hoffmann for its poetry, and Goethe himself declared that Beethoven had expressed his intentions with “a remarkable genius”.
The overture, powerful and expressive, is one of the last works of his middle period; it has become as famous a composition as the Coriolan Overture, and is in a similar style to the Fifth Symphony, which he had completed two years earlier.
Outline of sections
The incidental music comprises the following sections, among which the overture, the lieder Die Trommel gerühret, Freudvoll und Leidvoll and the Mort de Klärchen are particularly well-known:
Overture: Sostenuto, ma non troppo – Allegro
Lied: “Die Trommel gerühret”
Entracte: Andante
Entracte: Larghetto
Lied: “Freudvoll und Leidvoll”
Entracte: Allegro – Marcia
Entracte: Poco sostenuto e risoluto
Mort de Klärchen
Melodram: “Süßer Schlaf”
Siegessymphonie (symphony of victory): Allegro con brio
The Tragic Overture (German: Tragische Ouvertüre), Op. 81, is a concert overture for orchestra written by Johannes Brahms during the summer of 1880. It premiered on 26 December 1880 in Vienna. Most performances last between twelve and fifteen minutes.
Brahms chose the title “Tragic” to emphasize the turbulent, tormented character of the piece, in essence a free-standing symphonic movement, in contrast to the mirthful ebullience of a companion piece he wrote the same year, the Academic Festival Overture. Despite its name, the Tragic Overture does not follow any specific dramatic program. Brahms was not very interested in musical storytelling and was more concerned with conveying and eliciting emotional impressions. He summed up the effective difference between the two overtures when he declared “one laughs while the other cries.” Brahms quotes some material from the last movement of the Second Symphony in this overture.
The Tragic Overture comprises three main sections, all in the key of D minor.
Allegro ma non troppo
Molto più moderato
Tempo primo ma tranquillo.
Theorists have disagreed in analyzing the form of the piece: Jackson finds Webster’s multifarious description rather obscurist and prefers to label the work’s form as a “reversed sonata design” in which the second group is recapitulated before the first, with Beethoven‘s Coriolan Overture as a possible formal model.[1]
1. Adagio — Allegro vivace, 2/2 2. Adagio, 3/4 in E flat major 3. Allegro vivace, 3/4 4. Allegro ma non troppo, 2/4
Symphony No. 4 in B flat major (Op. 60), It was written in the summer of 1806. It was premiered in March 1807 at a private concert of the home of Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz. The Coriolan Overture and the fourth piano concerto were premiered in that same concert.
The work was dedicated to CountFranz von Oppersdorff, a relative of Beethoven’s patron, Prince Lichnowsky. The Count met Beethoven when he traveled to Lichnowsky’s summer home where Beethoven was staying. Von Oppersdorff listened to Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2 in D Major, and liked it so much that he offered a great amount of money for Beethoven to compose a new symphony for him.
The dedication was made to “the Silesian nobleman Count Franz von Oppersdorf”. Hector Berlioz was so enamoured of the symphony’s 2nd movement that he claimed it was the work of the Archangel Michael, and not that of a human. Related articles
Ludwig van Beethoven‘s Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58, was composed in 1805–1806, although no autograph copy survives. It is scored for solo piano and an orchestra consisting of a flute, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two horns, two trumpets, timpani, and strings. Like many classical concertos, it has three movements:
Allegro moderato
Andante con moto (in E minor)
Rondo (Vivace)
Premiere and reception
It was premiered in March 1807 at a private concert of the home of Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz. The Coriolan Overture and the Fourth Symphony were premiered in that same concert.[1] However, the public premiere was not until 22 December 1808 in Vienna at the Theater an der Wien. Beethoven again took the stage as soloist. This was part of a marathon concert which saw Beethoven’s last appearance as a soloist with orchestra, as well as the premieres of the Choral Fantasy and the Fifth and Sixth symphonies. Beethoven dedicated the concerto to his friend, student, and patron, the Archduke Rudolph.
A review in the May 1809 edition of the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung states that “[this concerto] is the most admirable, singular, artistic and complex Beethoven concerto ever”.[2] However, after its first performance, the piece was neglected until 1836, when it was revived by Felix Mendelssohn. Today, the work is widely performed and recorded, and is considered to be one of the central works of the piano concerto literature.
The structure and themes of the overture follow the play very generally. The main C minor theme represents Coriolanus’ resolve and war-like tendencies (he is about to invade Rome), while the more tender E-flat major theme represents the pleadings of his mother to desist. Coriolan eventually gives in to tenderness, but since he cannot turn back having led an army of his former enemies to Rome’s gates, he kills himself. It was premiered in March of 1807 at a private concert of the home of Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz. The Symphony No. 4 in B flat and the Piano Concerto No. 4 in G were premiered in that same concert.
Heinrich Joseph von Collin (1771-1811), Austriandramatist, was born in Vienna, on 26 December 1771. He received a legal education and entered the Austrian ministry of finance where he found speedy promotion. In 1805 and in 1809, when Austria was under the heel of Napoleon, Collin was entrusted with important political missions. In 1803 he was, together with other members of his family, ennobled, and in 1809 madeHofrat. He died on 28 July 1811 in Vienna. His tragedy Regulus (1801), written in strict classical form, was received with enthusiasm in Vienna, where literary taste, less advanced than that of northern Germany, was still under the ban of Frenchclassicism. But in his later dramas, Coriolan(1804), Polyxena (1804), Balboa (1806), and Bianca della Porta (1808), he made some attempt to reconcile the pseudo-classic type of tragedy with that of Shakespeare and the German romanticists. As a lyric poet (Gedichte, collected 1812), Collin has left a collection of stirringWehrmannslieder for the fighters in the cause of Austrian freedom, as well as some excellent ballads (Kaiser Max auf der Martinswand, Herzog Leupold vor Solothurn).
His younger brother Matthäus von Collin (1779-1824), was, as editor of the Wiener Jahrbücher für Literatur, an even more potent force in the literary life of Vienna. He was, moreover, in sympathy with the Romantic movement, and intimate with its leaders. His dramas on themes from Austrian national history (Belas Krieg mit dem Vater, (1808); Der Tod Friedrichs des Streitbaren, 1813) may be regarded as the immediate precursors of Grillparzer‘s historical tragedies.
Heinrich’s Gesammelte Werke appeared in 6 vols. (1812-1814); he is the subject of an excellent monograph by F. Laban (1879). See also A. Hauffen, Des Drama der klassischen Periode, ii.2 (1891), where a reprint of Regulus will be found. M. von Collins Dramatische Dichtungen were published in 4 vols. (1815-1817); his Nachgelassene Schriften, edited by J. von Hammer, in 2 vols. (1827). A study of his life and work by J. Wihan will be found in Euphorion, Erganzungsheft, v (1901). (From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Joseph_von_Collin)
The subject of the music and dramatic narrative is the life and heroism of a 16th-century Flemish nobleman, the Count of Egmont. It was composed during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, at a time when the French Empire had extended its domination over most of Europe. Beethoven had famously expressed his great outrage over Napoleon Bonaparte’s decision to crown himself Emperor in 1804, furiously scratching out his name in the dedication of the Eroica Symphony. In the music for Egmont, Beethoven expressed his own political concerns through the exaltation of the heroic sacrifice of a man condemned to death for having taken a valiant stand against oppression. The Overture later became an unofficial anthem of the1956 Hungarian revolution.
The music was greeted with eulogistic praise, in particular by E.T.A. Hoffmann for its poetry, and Goethe himself declared that Beethoven had expressed his intentions with “a remarkable genius”.
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