Event
Johannes Brahms: A German Requiem
Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem, Op. 45
Brahmss German Requiem is the longest work the composer ever wrote. It
surpasses his symphonies and concertos. (He never wrote an opera). The work was
received enthusiastically from the premiere performance and it established Brahms
internationally as a composer deserving of the greatest respect.
In spite of the fact that the word Requiem stands as its title, the composition has
little connection with the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass with Latin text. Brahms
conceived something quite different: a concert work in the Protestant Lutheran
tradition with German texts taken entirely from the Old and New Testaments of the
Bible and the Apochrypha. Brahms selected and arranged the order of the texts
himself with a goal of conveying comfort and hope for the bereaved rather than the
medieval visions of pain and fear connected with the Last Judgment as depicted by
Berlioz, Verdi and Dvorák. Brahms was not an active churchgoer but he was an avid
student of the Lutheran (German) Bible. His copy of the Bible, now preserved in a
museum in Vienna, is full of penciled annotations.
Brahmss mothers death in 1865 is often cited as the stimulus for composing the
work because he was working on it after returning from her funeral to Vienna.
However, this is an arguable point because he had been working on it for quite some
time before she died. Three months after his mothers death he sent two
movements to his friend, Clara Schumann. These were the first and fourth
movements (Blest are they that mourn, and How lovely is thy dwelling place). In
his letter to Clara he also mentions the second movement (Behold, all flesh is
grass). This movement, which is like a slow dance in triple meter called a
sarabande, had actually begun life more than ten years earlier as a scherzo of a twopiano sonata in D minor, which Clara and Brahms had played together at her home
after her husband, Robert Schumann, had to be moved to an insane asylum after he
had attempted suicide. Schumann eventually died, and Brahms told his friend
Joseph Joachim that the German Requiem was also closely associated with the
memory of Robert Schumann, who had written prophetically many years earlier,
When he [Brahms] lowers his magic wand on the masses of choir and orchestra
whose powers endow him with strength, we shall await wondrous glimpses into the
world of the spirit.
By 1866, the German Requiem had six movements. The first three were performed
in Vienna by the Society of Friends of Music under the direction of Johann von
Herbeck. The results were a disappointment. The chorus did not know the work
well enough and the timpanist was over enthusiastic and made so much noise in the
third movement that Brahms himself hissed. Brahmss friend, Theodor Billroth,
observed in a letter: His Requiem is so nobly spiritual and so Protestant-Bach-like
that it was difficult to make it acceptable here [in Catholic Vienna].
The next performance of the then six-movement work took place in the cathedral in
Bremen, Germany, on Good Friday, 10 April 1868. This time things went much
better. Brahms supervised the choral rehearsals and conducted the performance
himself. The baritone solos were sung by his friend (and frequent performer of his
songs), Julius Stockhausen. The audience was a surprise to Brahms. Over 2000
people came, including his father and Clara Schumann as well as his friends and
musicians from all over Europe. The reaction, according to an account written at the
time, was overwhelming, and the performance had to be repeated two weeks later,
this time conducted by the cathedrals music director, Karl Reinthaler.
However, the work had sparked another kind of controversy. Reinthaler
complained to Brahms that the work was not more traditionally liturgical and did
not include reference to the redemption of sinners. Brahms was unwilling to make
changes to his selected texts and wrote back to Reinthaler, As regards the title, I
will confess that I would gladly have left out the German and substituted Human.
Also that I knowingly and intentionally omitted passages such as St. Johns gospel,
chapter 3, verse 16 [For God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten
Son] On the other hand, I have no doubt included much because I am a musician,
because I required it, because I can neither argue away nor strike out a henceforth
from my precious extracts. Reinthaler stuck to his theological argument and began
the second performance with a soprano soloist singing I know that my redeemer
liveth from Handels Messiah.
After these performances Brahms decided to add a seventh movement to the
German Requiem at the suggestion of his former teacher, Eduard Marxsen. This is
the movement with the soprano solo that conveys a message of maternal
consolation. it was inserted as the fifth movement and the now seven-movement
work was first performed in Leipzig, Germany, on 18 February 1869, conducted by
Carol Reinecke. After that, performances were heard in every major European city
including St. Petersburg, Russia, within a few years.
Brahmss comment that he had considered naming the work A Human Requiem is
important because it is universal in scope. He avoids all mention of Christ in his text
selections, though the word Lord [Herr in German] might be taken as a reference
to the Messiah of the New Testament.
The idea of a German Requiem was also not new. In 1636 Heinrich Schütz had
described his Musikalische Exequien as a Concerto in the form of a German Burial
Mass. This work shares with Brahmss the text Blessed are the dead (the seventh
movement in Brahmss setting), though Schütz combines this text with the Song of
Simeon [Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace]. Bachs Cantata 106
[Gods time is best] is also an example of selected biblical texts on the subject of
human mortality.
Brahmss conception of the forces for his work involved huge proportions a choir
of more than 200 singers with a massive orchestra. However, he also arranged his
orchestration for piano accompaniment and wrote another version for piano duet so
that the work would be performed widely. In our performances we use a reduced
orchestration for chamber orchestra by Joachim Linckelmann. The string parts
adhere to the original orchestration as does the timpani part. The original 19 other
orchestral instruments are replaced by a woodwind quintet (flute, oboe, clarinet,
horn and bassoon).
Even though the German Requiem was composed over a span of several years,
Brahms retains a broad symmetry in the layout of the movements that suggests a
kind of mirror structure. The first and last movements have similar texts and share
the same key. The second, third and sixth movements are similar in that they all
move from images of despair and death to hope and triumph. The middle two
movements speak of consolation. The fourth movement also offers relief after the
drama of the preceding movements. The sixth movement, the longest in the work, is
also the keystone of the structure. It begins with a lament on the transitory nature
of life. The baritone soloist plays the role of a prophet, foretelling the future. The
stormy middle section is the closest Brahms gets to the terrifying apocalyptic
images that dominate so many of the Latin Requiem settings. Confidence is restored
with a masterfully crafted fugue in the Handelian tradition.
The last movement returns to the spirit of the opening, emphasizing Brahmss
principal message: consolation. Brahms was fond of the image of the closed circle,
the balanced form and it is therefore appropriate that the chorus should sing
Blessed are the dead to the theme which in the first movement accompanied the
words Blessed are those who mourn.
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LocationCamden Opera House (View)
29 Elm Street
Camden, ME 04843
United States
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| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
| Wheelchair Accessible: Yes! |
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