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Brahms: Academic Festival Overture, op. 80 | Tchaikovsky: Variations on a Rococo Theme |
Dvorák: Symphony No. 8 in G Major, op. 88

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Academic Festival Overture, op. 80

Although not an academic himself, Johannes Brahms, the esteemed German composer, received a number of honors from academic institutions. In 1877 the University of Cambridge offered to award him a Doctorate in Music, but as it could not be conferred in absentia and Brahms refused to cross salt water to receive it, the offer was withdrawn. However, when the German university in Breslau offered a similar honor two years later, Brahms sent his thanks–on a postcard. After Berhard Scholz, a longtime friend and director of music in Bresalu, suggested that a musical response would be a more appropriate form of thanks, Brahms responded with the Academic Festival Overture–a picture of student life with full symphonic treatment. Brahms composed the work during the summer of 1880 at the Austrian resort town of Bad Ischl and conducted the first performance in Breslau the following January before town and university dignitaries. The academic community was somewhat taken aback at what they must have seen as a rather frivolous enterprise. When one professor asked Brahms if he had really quoted The Fox Song (a freshman ragging song), the composer responded without apology that he had. While presenting neither a symphony nor a ditty, Brahms displays a depiction of the full range of student experiences, from parties to academics, through a masterful potpourri of student songs and other popular melodies.

The overture begins by evoking a quiet, almost mysterious atmosphere building to the first of the student songs presented majestically as a German chorale. As the music builds, the winds sing the praises of beauty, Wir hatten gebaut ein stättliche Haus (We had built a stately home). The principal theme returns with the full orchestra leading to the second student song introduced by the second violins accompanied by pizzicato lower strings Der Landesvater (The father of our country). The Fox Song–Was kommt dort von der Höh, (a song ridiculing freshmen raw from the provinces), appears first on the bassoons, the full orchestra joining in the fun. Following a recapitulation in which the themes reappear with further development, the piece concludes with the entire forces joining in a triumphant rendition of the oldest and most common European student song Gaudeamus igitur (While we are young, let us rejoice).

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Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)
Variations on a Rococo Theme

A favorite of cellists and audiences alike, the Variations on a Rococo Theme is one of several of Tchaikovsky's works that pay homage to the music of his beloved Mozart. The most extensive of four pieces for solo cello and orchestra (2 original and 2 arrangements), the variations were commissioned by the composer’s colleague at the Moscow Conservatory. This colleague, the German cello virtuoso Wilhelm Karl Friedrich Fitzhagen, played the piece on concert tours to great acclaim. The composer gave him license to make adjustments to the solo part, but the cellist did not stop there. To Tchaikovsky’s dismay, Fitzhagen made significant musical revisions as well, including reordering the variations and deleting one in the process. Although the original version was published in Russia, it was only recently published in the west, and is not as yet well known here. Therefore, it is the Fitzhagen version that we hear tonight. Regardless of which version is performed, the piece sparkles with elegance and beauty with the solo cello soars above the light orchestral texture of double woodwinds, horns and strings.

The piece begins with a short orchestral introduction followed by the cello’s simple statement of the theme, a melody of Tchaikovsky’s own creation. Each of the seven variations that follow is bridged by an orchestral interlude to which the solo cello joins with various degrees of virtuosic display. Look for major technical fireworks from the cello in variations IV, V, VII, and the coda.

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Antonin Dvorák (1841-1904)
Symphony No. 8 in G Major, op. 88

By 1884, Antonín Dvorák was an internationally celebrated composer, renowned not only for his smaller works, but, following the success of his Symphony in d minor, as a symphonist as well. Upon returning home from another fruitful trip to England, his now solid financial position gave him the resources to realize one of his fondest dreams. He purchased Vysoká, a simple country home with a music room, surrounded by hills and forests where he wrote of experiencing peace and happiness. It was at this quiet retreat in the fall of 1889 that he composed his most Czech symphony, the Symphony No. 8 in G Major. Dvorák conducted the premiere in Prague on February 2, 1890. It is sometimes known as the "English Symphony," not because of any subject matter, influence or dedication, but because of a quarrel with his German publisher Simrock. Because the publisher only anticipated significant profit from the smaller works (such as the popular Slavonic Dances), Simrock was not interested in the composer’s large-scale efforts and offered Dvorák a mere pittance for the symphony. As a result, Dvorák broke his exclusive contract with Simrock and accepted a more appropriate offer from the English firm Novello. Contrasted with the cool treatment that the “Czech Nationalist” had received from the German/Austrian musical establishment, Dvorák was enormously popular in England and was granted an honorary doctorate by the University of Cambridge in June of 1891. Instead of presenting a thesis, he conducted performances of the G Major Symphony and his Stabat Mater at the ceremony. The composer conducted another notable early performance of the symphony for Czech Day at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair.

Although sometimes overshadowed in popularity by the New World Symphony, this work, a walk through the Bohemian countryside, represents the best of optimistic late 19th century symphonic writing. The first movement begins with a solemn cello melody which makes way for the introduction of the main theme on the flute. The second movement, full of contentment, gives us a picture of village life, complete with the sounds of birds and a flowing mountain stream. The village band even makes an appearance. The third movement is not an energetic scherzo (or even a Czech Furiant) but a graceful waltz full of melodic charm. The sudden change to the rustic dance of the trio section (the tune borrowed from his opera The Stubborn Lovers) and the coda, driving to the end at double speed, recall the beloved Czech dance, the Dumka. A trumpet call introduces the fourth movement; variations on a stately march theme evoking rustic festivities bring the symphony to a rousing conclusion.

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Program notes by Linda Mack. Copyright 2004.
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