Music Appreciation 4 Brahms Overture

Maestro Schwarz selected Johannes Brahms's (1833-1897) "Academic Festival Overture" for presentation 4 (of 6).  The piece is exciting and includes several old school songs.  One of them is "Gaudeamus igitur," and by "old school song," I mean the words date from the 13th century.  It is the Alma Mater song for the school where I taught for 19 years, Tempe Preparatory Academy, along with many colleges and universities.  The curricular choirs used to sing this song every year at TPA, and we often sang the song as a whole group--in Latin--at commencement.  When I say "often sang" I meant that the graduates on the platform managed the tune and three verses fairly well (yes even in Latin), while the audience mumbled along or looked politely around the room.

https://youtu.be/VIV-yJfIrlI

I wrote a brief quiz on this lecture.  Find it here.  Remember: you can hear the complete performance of this 11-minute piece by going to the lesson page and clicking on Watch the full performance here.

Next post: Music Appreciation 5 (David Stock's "Blast")