In 1879, the University of Breslau awarded Brahms an honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a Latin citation describing him as “the foremost exponent of musical art in the more strict style.” His response to this academic pomposity was not a weighty symphony – as the University expected – but this delightful and rollicking overture. It is replete with tongue-in-cheek references to student life and youthful hedonism, using themes from four student songs dating from the thirteenth century to the nineteenth century. The familiar “Gaudeamus igitur” (So let us be joyful) is the theme for the exuberant coda, the highlight of the overture. 

Despite the frivolity of the Overture, Brahms constructed an academically correct sonata-allegro movement with a grand coda, using the largest orchestra he had ever employed, including cymbals, triangle and bass drum. He described the overture to a friend as “a very merry potpourri of student songs a la Suppé.” (Franz von Suppé was a composer of popular operas and operettas.)