Tragic Overture (Brahms)

Brahms chose the title "tragic" to emphasize the turbulent, tormented character of the piece, in essence a free-standing symphonic movement, in contrast to the mirthful ebullience of a companion piece he wrote the same year, the Academic Festival Overture.

Brahms summed up the effective difference in character between the two overtures when he declared "one is laughing, the other crying.

"[2] The Tragic Overture comprises three main sections, all in the key of D minor.

Theorists have disagreed in analyzing the form of the piece: Jackson finds Webster's multifarious description[citation needed] rather obscurist and prefers to label the work's form as a "reversed sonata design" in which the second group is recapitulated before the first, with Beethoven's Coriolan Overture as a possible formal model.

[3] The work is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings.