LEONARD GOWINGS (Tenor)
LEONARD HIRSCH (Violin)
THE WIRELESS MILITARY BAND
Conducted by VICTOR HELY-HUTCHINSON
The Tragic Overture was composed in the same year (1880) as the Academic Festival Overture.
Two chords from the whole orchestra introduce a typical Brahms theme in a steady tempo. In a slightly, changed form the opening is repeated, and then there is a short theme, four bars long, of which the third and fourth bars are the first and second turned upside down. After some development, there is a tune played first by oboes and then horns which trombones and tubas carry on. After that, the real second theme is heard for the first time. a more serene and happy tune, but soon the music grows more agitated and works up to a climax. There, we hear still another now theme before the earlier ones return to form the customary recapitulation. Towards the end there is a little fugato made of a bit of the first tune, and the Overture closes with a coda, also built up on it.