Program Notes
Academic continued
tunes play a significant role in the orchestral texture. The Overture is artful, humorous and rather non-academic. Although Brahms had never been a student at any university he had participated in student life in Gottingen in 1853. The Overture is a student-eye view of the nobility of learning. The music has a sense of fun and borrows melodies from student songs about beauty, immaturity, parody, and glorification. The solemn introduction of the
Prelude: Die Meistersinger von Nurnburg Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
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It’s been said that as Beethoven dominated the first half of the Romantic period in music, the second half belongs to Richard Wagner. This composer was an innovator especially in his operas. Wagner was attracted to mythological subjects featuring magic, giants, dragons and Germanic gods, but he was also drawn to ideas of love’s magical powers. Of his 13 operas, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg is his only comic opera and tells of a love competition between Walther and Beckmesser for the hand of a young woman, Eva. The winner of the song contest gains the
Overture fooled the audience, but when the familiar tunes blared out in full symphonic dress, the students were so delighted that they joined in with their own irreverent words, which must have completely satisfied Brahms’ sense of mischief. The score uses the largest orchestra ensemble Brahms was ever to employ: piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, one tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, triangle and strings.
hand of the heroine. There are no supernatural elements in this work. Wagner wrote the opera’s Overture, which he called Prelude in 1862. He later went to work on the story and music for the full opera, which was completed in 1867. It was first performed at the Konigliches Hof-und National Theater (today the home of the Bavarian State Opera) in Munich, conducted by Hans von Bulow, June 21, 1868. Incorporating elements from the opera, the Prelude begins with