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Brahms' Third Symphony was written in the summer of 1883. The fifty-year-old composer was spending that summer in Wiesbaden, where his friend, the contralto Hermine Spies, lived. As usual, it turned into a working vacation. Brahms set to revising some pieces he had originally written as music for Goethe's Faust. Gradually, they evolved into the central movements of a four-movement Symphony in F major, his Third Symphony, which had its premiere December 2, 1883 as Hans Richter conducted the Vienna Philharmonic. Beginning with that first appearance, the piece was highly acclaimed. The famed critic, Eduard Hanslick, viewed it as the most perfect of Brahms' symphonies, "the most compact in form, the clearest in the details," and orchestral directors apparently agreed. The symphony quickly reached the stages of Berlin, Leipzig, Meiningen, and Wiesbaden. Its popularity was such that, before long, the composer took to calling his Third Symphony "the unfortunately over-famous symphony." Performances may have been too frequent for Brahms' own tastes, but it was, indeed, a masterpiece, worthy of such adulation. Even the great English master, Sir Edward Elgar once remarked, "I look at the Third Symphony of Brahms and I feel like a tinker."