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The second of Brahms' four symphonies was composed in 1877 in the town of P�rtschach on the W�rthersee in the Austrian Alps. P�rtschach is a sunny summer retreat, so it must have seemed curious when Brahms wrote to his publisher about the gloomy new piece he was composing. "The new symphony is so melancholy," he wrote, "that you won't be able to stand it. I have never before written anything so sad and mournful. The score will have to be published with a black border." Is it possible to spend a summer vacation writing sorrowful music? Perhaps Shostakovich could do so, but Brahms, as it turns out, was strictly joking. The Second Symphony is not an embodiment of storm and stress. It is, rather, a bright and buoyant piece, full of sunshine and good cheer. As the composer once remarked to Clara Schumann, it "might have been written expressly for a pair of newly-weds." He voiced a similar opinion to the Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick, to whom he wrote, "In the course of the winter I will let you hear a symphony which sounds so cheerful and delightful that you will think I wrote it especially for you, or rather your young wife." Hanslick apparently agreed. Upon hearing the work, he called it "a great, unqualified success," a piece that "extends its warm sunshine to connoisseurs and laymen alike."
The Second Symphony premiered in Vienna December 30, 1877, with Hans Richter conducting. One of the most renowned conductors of the day, Richter would also premiere Brahms' Third Symphony six years later. His presence on the podium was proof of the high regard in which Brahms was held, and how eagerly his music was anticipated. He had truly become the Beethoven of his day. Viennese audiences were pleased with the new symphony, which quickly assumed a place of prominence amongst Brahms' works. The often sardonic composer alleged that their fondness for the work was mostly due to the fact that two of the symphony's four movements were written in waltz-time. After all, what Viennese could dislike a symphony to which one could almost dance?