Symphony No. 2 in D Major, Op. 73

• Often described as the sunny counterpart to his first symphony in its serene pastoral mood and warmth, Brahms’s Symphony No. 2 in D Major was written in 1877, less than a year after its predecessor.¹
  • The piece was written while the composer was staying at the village of Pörtschach on the Worthersee, an idyllic Austrian lake.
• Regarding the fleeting moments of darkness that appear in the symphony, Brahms wrote the following:

“I have to confess that I am a severely melancholic person, that black wings are constantly flapping above us, and that in my output – perhaps not entirely by chance – that symphony [the Second] is followed by a little essay about the great ‘Why.’ If you don’t know this, I will send it to you. It casts the necessary shadow on the serene symphony and perhaps accounts for those timpani and trombones.”²

• The symphony premiered in December 1877 with the Vienna Philharmonic under the direction of Hans Richter. The audience loved the piece and even demanded a repeat of the joyful third movement.³

1. George S. Bozarth and Walter Frisch, “Brahms, Johannes,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed November 17, 2022, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000051879.
2. John Mangum, “Symphony No. 2,” LA Phil, accessed November 17, 2022, https://www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/3936/symphony-no-2.
3. B. H. Haggin, A Book of the Symphony (New York: Oxford University Press, 1937), 252.