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Dresden Philharmonie lohannes Brahms <i833-is97) Academic Festival Overture, Op. 80 In 1879, the venerable University of Breslau awarded Brahms an honorary doctorate. As a musical ‘thank you’ for this distinction, and encouraged by the conductor Bernard Scholz, who had nominated him for the award, he composed the Academic Festival Overture during the summer of 1880. The Overture was first performed with the composer himself conducting, on 4 lanuary 1881, at a special convocation or assembly, arranged by the University. It was immediately successful and has remained in the repertoire ever since. It Stands at the opposite emotional pole to that of the work which immediately followed its composition: the Tragic Overture, Op. 81. Brahms fulfilled his Obligation to write a work for the University by composing, in his own words, ‘a very boisterous potpourri of Student drinking songs, ä la Suppe’, Suppe being a well-known operetta composer of the period. Although the various sections of the Overture appear to be loose and episodic, they are in fact intricately designed, thus fulfilling the ‘academic’ aspect of the brief. In addition throughout Brahms’s use of the orchestra is extremely witty, for instance in the brilliant counterpoint employed in the triumphant final section, which is based on the well-known tune Gaudeamus igitur. And the orchestra employed by Brahms is one of the largest in his entire Output, allowing for a rieh blend of orchestral colours. The Overture consists of four continuous sections: Allegro (C minor); Maestoso (C major); Animato (G major) and Maestoso (C major). With its clearly laid- out structure, lyrical warmth, mounting excitement and obvious good humour, the Academic Festival Overture is one of Brahms’s most immediately attractive works. Sergei Rachmaninov (W73-1943) Piano Concerto No. 1 in F Sharp minor, Op. 1 Vivace Andante Allegro vivace In 1891, at the age of eighteen, Rachmaninov won the highest honours for his piano playing at the Moscow Conservatory, after studying with Alexander Siloti, who himself had studied with Tchaikovsky, Nicholas Rubinstein and Liszt. In addition, as a Student of composition with Taneyev and Arensky, he had written a number of works in different genres, before feeling able to give one of his compositions an opus number. This was to be the First Piano Concerto, by far his most ambitious work to date. The last two movements were written in a rush during Juty 1891, while still a Student: as Rachmaninov himself wrote to a friend, ‘I could have finished it much sooner, but after the first movement I idled for a long while... composed and scored the last two movements in two and a half days.’ Dedicated to Siloti, the Concerto was first performed at the Moscow Conservatory the following year, in March 1892, with Rachmaninov as soloist and Safonov conducting. The reception was not especially enthusiastic. Rachmaninov was disappointed but not as devastated as he was to be following the disastrous premiere of his First Symphony in 1897. The weak performance, conducted by Glazunov, and a vitriolic review by Cui, precipitated the depression for which Rachmaninov needed medical assistance, and the product of which was to be the Second Piano Concerto, first performed in 1901. Following the success of the Second Concerto Rachmaninov received many requests to hear the First, but he was very reluctant to place it before the public. By 1908 however he was definitely planning ‘to take it in hand, look it over, and then decide how much 6