Program Notes: Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) Symphony No. 2, Op. 73 According to the American Symphony Orchestra League, Brahms' Second Symphony was the most performed work in the 2007-2008 season, with 72 performances by its member orchestras.  Its gentle and kind beauty has graced the ears and warmed the hearts of every generation of listeners and musicians since its 1877 premiere.  When Brahms conducted it in his hometown of Hamburg, he was greeted to the stage by a trumpet fanfare, was presented with laurel wreaths, and showered with roses.  But this triumph was a long time in coming. It took Brahms more than twenty years (1855-1876) to complete his First Symphony. Why the delay?  Brahms famously complained about the "footsteps of giants" (i.e. Beethoven) rumbling intimidatingly behind him, along with Robert Schumann's famous superlatives praising him as the musical Messiah when he was only in his early 20s.  The pressure on Brahms was almost paralyzing.  When he finally delivered the long-awaited symphony, it was a shocking dark piece in c minor (an ominous key) about struggles and the heroic overcoming of adversity.   The second symphony, by contrast, came only one year after the first, and is much brighter and more benign; it radiates with a deep inner peace.  The first three movements are each beautiful in their own calm ways, and the crowd-pleasing fourth movement overflows with joy.  The entire symphony is based on a three-note step-wise motive that makes important appearances in all four movements.  The motive makes is first heard by the low strings as the first notes of the symphony.  Whether an energetic short staccato fragment sequenced and passed around the orchestra, as an almost invisible harmonic detail, or as the germinating seed of a long flowing phrase these three notes are critical to the construction of the music.  Brahms is famous for using this technique-crafting entire compositions out of a short simple idea. He went on to write a total of four symphonies, each one of them absolute masterpieces.  This one is probably his most beloved thanks to its loving and mellifluous beauty.