Pre-Concert Lecture with Dr. Marie Sumner Lott: Brahms Revealed

Dr. Marie Sumner Lott gives a free pre-concert lecture on Saturday, November 7, at the Goizueta Stage for Youth & Families, located by the Peachtree St. NE entrance of the Memorial Arts Building in Atlanta. The talk is part of Brahms Revealed, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's season-long look at Johannes Brahms as both a master melodist and an orchestral architect.

By the 1880s, Brahms was known as a composer of serious, learned works, but he also enjoyed a good laugh with his friends and liked to imbue even his monumental pieces with joy. When the University of Breslau awarded him an honorary doctorate, he celebrated with the cheeky Academic Festival Overture. Around the same time, he was finishing his second piano concerto, which closes with a sparkling potpourri of Classical and Romantic themes. Dr. Lott's talk frames the concert's program around that lesser-known, festive side of the composer.

It's a good way to get your bearings before the music starts, especially if you're more familiar with the heavy, brooding Brahms than the one who wrote an overture to celebrate a degree. The lecture is free, and it starts at 6:30 PM.