Symphony No. 2 in D major, Op. 73

Composed at breathtaking speed in the summer of 1877 at the lakeside resort of Pörtschach in Carinthia, and premiered in Vienna in December 1877 under Hans Richter to enormous acclaim, the Second Symphony is the most immediately appealing and outwardly sunniest of Brahms's four symphonies — his contemporaries called it his Pastoral. Yet beneath its luminous D-major surface and pastoral character lies music of great harmonic complexity: the celebrated opening horn melody is immediately shadowed by chromatic counterstatements, and the development sections probe dark and remote tonal regions with characteristic Brahmsian energy. The four movements trace a journey from Carinthian summer warmth through a deeply lyrical Adagio non troppo, a graceful Allegretto grazioso, and a rumbustious finale that concludes the symphony with blazing D-major affirmation.