The 'Academic Festival Overture' which we know, was the one out of three selected by the composer for preservation. It was composed in acknowledgment of the honorary doctor's degree offered to Brahms in 1880 by the university of Breslau, and was performed for the first time in that city on January 4, 1881, under his direction. The companion work, the Tragic Overture, and the second Symphony were included in the same programme. The newly-made Doctor of Philosophy was received with all the honour and enthusiasm befitting the occasion and his work, and was again stormily applauded on the 6th, when he performed Schumann's Fantasia, Op. 17, his two Rhapsodies, and the pianoforte part of his Horn Trio, at a concert of chamber music. In the Academic Overture the sociable spirit reappears which had prompted the boy of fourteen to compose an ABC part-song for his seniors, the village schoolmasters in and around Winsen. Now the renowned master of forty-seven seeks to identify himself with the youthful spirits of the university with which he has become associated, by taking, for principal themes of his overture, student melodies loved by him from their association with the early Göttingen years of happy companionship with Joachim, with Grimm, with von Meysenbug and others. Four of these, 'Wir hatten gebauet,' 'Hört ich sing' 'Was kommt dort,' and the 'Gaudeamus,' are introduced in the course of the movement, which is written in regular classical form, and the composer lingers with particular affection over the third one, the song that in student circles accompanies the merry 'Fox-ride,' which in the summer of 1853 carried Brahms so many leagues distant from the earlier stages of his life's journey. The favourite 'Gaudeamus igitur,' given with the full strength of the orchestra, brings the masterly and effective work to a brilliant conclusion. The two overtures, bearing to each other a relation analogous to that which exists between the first and second symphonies, furnish another instance of the composer's occasional habit of writing at once, or in quick succession, two works of the same form animated by contrasted subjective qualities. The 'Academic' has become very familiar to concert-goers, and has, so far, attained to more universal popularity than the impressive 'Tragic.'