brahms requiem analysis

Although his earlier recordings had been in German, Shaw often advocated translations and opted for one here, but in deference to Brahms' own use of the Lutheran Bible he felt that "a version in English would need roots in language as deep as those in music, and as exalted in beauty," and thus turned to "our noblest linguistic heritage" the King James Bible, to whose words he adhered as closely as possible, although some syllables are stretched or repeated to fit the music. As Shaw pondered his own translation in 1999, Jessop assumes his motivation must have been the same as it was 40 years earlier when he created an English version of Bachs St. Matthew Passion. But perhaps the most significant but overlooked word in the title is the first and least prominent: "Ein" ("A"). After a long hiatus, the sporadic recording history of the German Requiem resumed in curious fashion in 1955, when two mono LP sets were recorded at the same location by the same orchestra and chorus but released on competing European labels. WebSummary. It was about the music and nothing else. But Faur was quite explicit about how to go about achieving this freedom. The second movement is shapelessly slow; the fourth treacly and muffled. For a taste of Furtwangler's magic in modern sound, Barenboim comes quite close, with nearly identical tempos, beautifully shaped phrases, thundering climaxes (with hugely imposing timpani Furtwangler reportedly asked his timpanist if he was playing as loudly as he could and when assured that he was demanded that he play even louder), and deep spirituality he invests the mourners' opening with a wondrous sense of longing by stretching each phrase and magnifies the explosive triumphant outbursts of the climaxes with deeply serious preparatory passages. WebLSU Digital Commons | Louisiana State University Research The very opening heralds an especially devoted reading, as each orchestral phrase is layered with cumulative power, and we feel the weight of each word as Furtwngler constantly fine-tunes his tempos and smoothly integrates a vast dynamic range from gentle whispers to hair-raising climaxes through exquisite transitions. Otto Klemperer, Philharmonia Orchestra and Chorus, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Schwartzkopf (1961, EMI, 69'). The result was a close-knit fabric reflecting the truths Brahms drew from Christian tradition. He was a huge presence, physically and spiritually as well., In what amounted to a benediction for the symposium, Jessop recalled a Shaw story related to Brahms. Take, for example, the opening phrase, "Selig sind." and then plunges into a magnificent choral fugue assuring that "the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God." It begins with the pulse. It provides historical information, performance considerations, musical analysis, and resource material for all who enjoy the musicology behind this magnificent work. One of the last sections they worried over was the final movement: Blessed are the dead that they rest now from their labors and that their works follow after them. To this day, Frink cant listen to those words and that music without thinking of Shaw. This really is Shaw's third and final recording having prepared it, he died shortly before the actual sessions, which then were realized by his colleague. WebThis is a strategy Brahms will use several more times during the German Requiem. Among relatively straightforward recordings, Kempe's timing of 76 minutes pushes the limit without losing the work's intrinsic sense of hopefulness, mainly (as did Abendroth) through injecting acceleration and emphasis into the climactic sections that are nestled amid extreme reflection. My only quibbles are a slightly stodgy pacing of the VI fugue and a bad splice before its final "Where is thy sting." Indeed in terms of tempos alone this is quite possibly the most sizable variance among all known Toscanini performances of any given work. Try 6 issues for just 9.99 when you subscribe to BBC Music Magazine today! The primary stimulus appears to have come with Schumann's untimely death in 1856. These two historically-informed recordings bring us squarely to the question of the performance characteristics that Brahms would have wanted to hear. April 10, 1868. By April, he sent Clara Schumann two movements of the Requiem. Shaws longtime personal assistant, Nola Frink, was by his side as he struggled to find the right syllable for every note. A 1983 remake with Shaw's Atlanta forces, which by then he had led for 15 years, boasts a superlative early digital recording and a somewhat broader overall pace that trades the sweep and momentum of the earlier reading for a sense of well-being. Balances favor the chorus, which sings with precision and meticulous enunciation, thus tending to suggest an emphasis on mechanics over emotion and presenting more bones than flesh. WebTo make a thorough study of these lessons is to became a better teacher or student, and also to became a more discerning musician. By setting the final thought that "their works follow them" to the same music as the opening prayer for comfort (but with brighter orchestration), Brahms not only ties the conclusion back to the initial focus upon those who remain to mourn but envelops the entire work and, by implication, all human endeavor, fear and hope with the supreme consolation of a Divine embrace. Legend has it that Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, who sings her comforting solo with ravishing nurture, selflessly sang along with the chorus sopranos to bolster their efforts. For Jones, the most important lesson to pass along at the symposium was Shaws commitment to the symbols on the page as being what the composer wanted to hear. Prior to Shaw, Jones argued, American choral music was too much about the conductorthe Westminster sound, the St. WebVince Sheehan explores the themes, structure and text of this choral masterpiece. Shaw was drawn to the texts Brahms selected; he dissected and researched all of them. Jessop remembers especially how Shaw responded to the text from Revelation Brahms used in the final movement: I dont know if the soul is immortal, but I do know your good works will follow after you.. Perhaps in an on-going effort to plumb its depths, Brahms reportedly covered his copy with annotations. WebIt is an oratorio, a choral setting of biblical texts, and has little to do with the Latin Requiem Mass. At the time of World War II, Shaw was a New York playboy, according to Frink, and his brother was a military chaplain. His pupil Florence May noted that he had selected and arranged his text in order to present ascending ideas of sorrow consoled, doubt overcome, and, ultimately, death vanquished. Eduard Hanslick, who ultimately would bestow upon the work the supreme praise of being a worthy successor to Bach's B Minor Mass and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, likened the ending to "rattling through a tunnel on an express train" and wrote: "After long expanses of delicately lyrical, poetic music, the piece seemed to end by clubbing the audience about the head." He was absorbing musical influences ranging from Wagners operas to Schuberts choral and orchestral works, which were emerging posthumously in Vienna. Indeed, while the Catholic requiem begins with a blessing for the dead, here death is not even mentioned until the penultimate movement, nor are the dead themselves addressed until the finale. Katharine Fuge (soprano), Matthew Brook (bass) Monteverdi Choir & Orchestre Rvolutionnaire et Romantique, John Eliot Gardiner. Yet doubt as to whether it might have been misattributed seems dispelled by a nearly comparable 1935 New York Philharmonic Toscanini concert. 2012-2023, Chorus America. Johannes rushed home but was too late to see her. Brahmss choice of texts is central to the Requiems originality. Hermann Abendroth, Radio Berlin Orchestra and Chorus, Heinz Friedrich, Lisbeth Schmidt-Glanzel (1952, Tahra CD, 76'). Natasha Loges explores Brahmss unique reflection on the journey towards the grave and the afterlife as she compares the best recordings of A German Requiem. Throughout his session on the Requiems origins, Musgrave made it a point to pause occasionally to remind his listeners how little about the works creation we really know. But when sprawled over 80 minutes and without the special touches of a Furtwngler, Abendroth or Bernstein it tends to just drag more than fascinate. There was ample precedent for that approach, but none among major religious works of the time. WebThis book is intended to help those who are contemplating performing or studying the Brahms Requiem. To Musgrave, the familiar fourth movement, Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen, seems an odd man out. Did Brahms compose it at an earlier time? Her research interests include German song, concert history, 19th-century performance practice and gender studies, with a particular focus on the lives and music of Brahms and the Schumanns. Wonderfully played, sung and recorded, everything fits together superbly. One of the last vestiges of the vigor that distinguished Walter's long career until the very end (which regrettably is the only portion most classical fans know nowadays from his final Columbia stereo remakes), this magnificent reading is beautifully paced, never rushed but always pressing forward with energy and a strong rhythmic thrust, including overpowering timpani in II, an extraordinary rarity in the entire Walter discography. The titles of most classical works are merely generic ("Symphony # 1 in C Major"), descriptive ("Scheherazade") or appended by others and often sadly inappropriate (the "Moonlight" Sonata). Its greatest message, says Musgrave, is a message of comfort, especially apparent in the fifth movement soprano solo, which quotes Isaiah: I will comfort you as a mother would. Although Brahms did not like people asking him about it, Musgrave says everyone in the composers circle believed he wrote this movement for his own mother, who died in February 1868. It gave the composer a sense of how massive the piece would be. That same year had also seen him break off his engagement to Agathe von Siebold who, he later told a friend, was the last love of his life. Thus, George Bernard Shaw sniped that the German Requiem was fit for a funeral home and the 1873 Musical Times echoed that "the Philharmonic concert hall is not the place for a funeral service." And the way we learn about his feelings is by learning to speak his languageas perfectly and trustingly as we can.. "), and then launches into a massive C-major fugue in praise of God as the creator of all. 1 in C minor, by Johannes Brahms. Beyond the expected mixed reaction from pro- and anti-Wagner partisans, for whom Brahms soon would become a symbol of conservative tradition, the performance ended in disaster, when the percussionist apparently mistook a dynamic indication in the score as ff and drowned out the concluding third movement fugue with a deafening pedal point. Although Brahms did not point to the precise source, Ochs decided he was referring to Bachs chorale Wer nur den lieben Gott., Moving to the nearby piano, Musgrave played the tune in question, familiar to Lutherans as the hymn If thou but suffer God to guide thee. The comparison was convincing. The rest of the year was preoccupied with concerts and other compositions, but Brahms returned to the Requiem in early 1866. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians construes the title mainly as a mandate to perform the work in the German language (although, ironically, the German Requiem is heard in translation far more often than any other religious work of comparable stature). H. Kevil explains that 19th century ears, accustomed to attempts to express emotional reality, found Brahms' level approach a sign of sterile pedantry. The recording is somewhat crude and uncomfortably poised between clear vocals and hazy instrumentals. Yet others plumb Brahms' compilation for even deeper meaning. What's in a name? Within those large sections, look for cadences to determine where the divisions are. While looking at structure, dont get distracted by the text, Jones counsels. In his reminiscences, Ochs recalls Brahms saying the Requiems first and second movements contain elements of a well-known chorale. Aged 32 at the time, his output up to this point had consisted largely of solo piano works and chamber music one notable exception was his First Piano Concerto which, after an underwhelming premiere in Hanover in 1859, had gone on to enjoy a better reception elsewhere. He has freedom because of the rhythmic discipline.. Murgrave even questions the relationship of the fifth movement to Brahms' late mother, and suggests that it was simply too personal and intimate to have been given public exposure until after the success of the rest of the work had been assured. In the notes to his recording, Gardiner asserts that he attempted to eschew a standard smooth approach in favor of the Baroque devices that Brahms, more than any other composer of his time, studied, cherished and assimilated, including dissonance, cross-rhythms and syncopation, and in particular Schtz's speech- and dance-derived rhythms. In keeping with the two soloists' respective functions, the baritone aptly quakes with excitement, while the soprano is serene. I used to say, My job is to get the water ready for him to walk on. I nearly drowned many times. Jones remembers that even a little thing like stumbling over a name would cause him to take it out on us. He's often described as a "secular humanist" (perhaps synonymous with "agnostic"), but grew up in the Lutheran church and would have had strong sentimental, if not religious, connections to the You can unsubscribe at any time. Perhaps the key observation was by Alec Robertson, who called it "a flawed work" for the very reason that "one is left asking questions that cannot be answered." A large chorus can be a mucilaginous mess. Johannes Brahms leads his lifelong friend Clara Schumann up the aisle of St. Peter's Cathedral in Bremen, arm-in-arm, as though they were about to be Even so, the earliest roots of the German Requiem extend back to Brahms' great mentor, the influential composer/critic Robert Schumann, who had published a glowing article hailing Brahms as a musical genius shortly after meeting him in 1853. The performance was a huge success for Dietrich, it was simply overwhelming and Brahms was celebrated afterwards at a banquet. No other piece of music captivated iconic conductor Robert Shaw more than the Brahms Requiem. More likely is that by shunning Latin for the vernacular, Brahms intended the work to be more accessible to modern audiences. Brahms' compilation of texts reflected his own religious tenets. Brahms was an intensely private man; he left no written credo, and we will never know exactly what his religious beliefs were. He was confirmed in the Lutheran church as a youth and knew the bible thoroughly; it would remain a key source of inspiration for him throughout his life. It was with these purposes in mind that I Never dull but rather purposeful and focused, it flows inexorably. It opens with a solemn march in time (derived from the slow scherzo of the abandoned symphony), lightens with hope, proclaims the word of God in bold unison, and ends in varied radiant assertions of "ewige Freude" ("everlasting joy"). The fourth movement, an interlude reflecting the contentment of living with God, begins and ends simply and serenely, bracketing a double fugue that emerges to expand upon the thought of praising God. Shaws approach facilitated his singers understanding of structure and their ability to avoid mistakes. At the time, Shaw wrote, Bachs first concern was to affirm and quicken a faith. Some of my colleagues think Im crazy, admits Musgrave, but Im convinced Ochs was right. Abendroth's concert is superficially similar to Furtwngler's but with enough crucial distinctions to highlight why Furtwngler's magic is unique and eludes others who might be tempted to emulate him. The difference seems especially bewildering, as the Tragic Overture that opened the concert is paced the same as, and is rendered even more intensely than, a June 1935 Toscanini BBC rendition (and both are a minute faster than his official 1953 NBC recording of the Overture). Let's begin by exploring these, together with some others that follow the paths blazed by the pioneers. The unusual string sound borrows much from the world of historical performance, but without sacrificing the luxurious sound and emotional vulnerability that come with the use of vibrato. That was his custom, say the conductors who worked with him, but Shaw found it absolutely essential with the Requiem. Yet the German Requiem is nearly a secular work, and even avoids any mention whatsoever of Christ a source of early critical scorn that led to the insertion of excerpts from Handel's Messiah and Bach's St. Matthew Passion at the premiere, perhaps to reassure ecclesiastical authorities of the composer's faith and to eliminate any suspicion of a challenge to Church doctrine. I could see he could channel more than music, but life itself. That, in turn, points to the sheer modernism of the work, not only reflecting the emerging secular spirit of the time to probe traditional material for individual expression, but launching the egoistic attitude of personal viewpoints that would come to challenge and even override established faith (as in Benjamin Britten's 1961 War Requiem and Leonard Bernstein's 1971 Mass). He must have been preoccupied with it for a long time. Fritz Lehmann, Berlin Philharmonic, St. Hedwig Cathedral Choir, Berlin Motet Choir, Otto Wiener, Maria Stader (1955, DG, 80'), Rudolf Kempe, Berlin Philharmonic, St. Hedwig Cathedral Choir, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Grmmer (1955, EMI, 76'). Klaus Blum found resemblances between the Brahms German Requiem and two requiems that Schumann had written. In the first movement, theres a big A and a coda. The requiem emerged from a decade of turmoil. The pacing is a swift 65 minutes (and since this was a concert its speed cannot be attributed to pressure to fit segments onto 78 rpm sides), abetted by attentive articulation and ardent accentuation. Near the end of a life driven by passion and painstaking preparation, conductor Robert Shaw was completing a new English translation of one of his signature pieces, the Brahms Requiem. With the NBC concert, we confront the vexing issue of translation. Indeed, one of Bach's very first cantatas (his 1707 "Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit," now numbered 106), is believed to have been written for a funeral and has been cited as a miniature model for the German Requiem, as it combines isolated lines from the Psalms, Isaiah, Luke, Acts, Ecclesiastices, Revelations and a 1533 Reissner hymn into a beautifully integrated 20-minute meditation comprised of an instrumental prelude, choruses suffused with soprano, alto, tenor and bass solos and a concluding chorale. Brahms-haters often complain that they find his music claggy, densely textured and over-serious. A symposium presented by Chorus America in honor of the Shaw centenary explored the conductors deep connection to this masterworkand what it reveals about his approach to music and his legacy. WebAlbum: Songfacts: "A German Requiem, To Words of the Holy Scriptures," is a large-scale choral work composed between 1865 and 1868 by German composer Johannes Brahms. The German Requiem bears the distinction of having had no less than three premiere performances. Martin Emmis has noted its broad structural symmetry, in which the central movements IV and V convey the key theme of consolation; II, III and VI move from images of death and despair to triumph and hope; and I and VII close the circle by blessing both mourners and the departed with common text in the same key. Take the fundamental issue of timing Brahms provided metronome indications for the Bremen premiere, but he later had them removed, and in any event they are far faster than any conductor is willing to accept thus, for the 158-bar common-time first movement he specified 80 quarter notes to the minute, which would yield a performance of just under 8 minutes; Gardiner takes 9:50 and Norrington 8:48, while among traditional conductors the fastest are Walter's 8:52 and Shaw/RCA's 9:15; the average hovers between 10 and 11. But from the vantage of the complexity and cynicism of the seemingly insoluble problems of our current world-view, is that really a problem or more a hallmark of sophistication? Sergiu Celibidache, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, Munich Bach Choir, Franz Gerihsen, Arleen Auger (1981, EMI, 88'). Beautifully balanced and richly recorded, he injects just enough animation to communicate a fully-integrated view of the piece and Fischer-Dieskau's expressive fluidity is wondrous. By the end, one feels no different from the start. You cant use that voice to begin rehearsals. For the Requiem, or any piece, he refused to tax his singers voices to achieve balance. Karajan's first two stereo Berlin Philharmonic remakes (he made yet another with the Vienna Philharmonic (1985, DG), which I haven't heard sorry, but even I have my limits) are quite similar, hovering between profundity and aloof abstraction. Place each syllable on the pulse where it belongs. Shaw's brisker pace itself provides sufficient vigor to obviate a need for overt dramatizing, although he accelerates the proclamation of victory swallowing death in VI to a white heat, which further underlines its climactic role in the overall structure, and leads logically into a steadfast rendition of the following fugue praising God the Creator, as if to emphasize the inevitability of that thought. He sent her the fourth movement, and described the first and second movements. Like Shaw, Walter saves his most potent firepower for VI so as to emphasize its thematic importance in the overall structure, but unlike Shaw's dissipation of that energy he plunges into an equally energetic fugue. As Andr Tubeuf quipped, Vienna may have lacked everything at the time except music. I prefer the earlier one, if only for the massively potent timpani that galvanize the II climaxes (and suggest control-room manipulation drums just can't be that loud!). While sorting through Schumann's estate, Brahms came upon a bare reference to a German Requiem and felt compelled to take up the task. But he didnt want us to know much about it. An 1865 letter to his dear friend Clara Schumann provides the first recorded evidence of its existence. It comprises seven movements, which together last 65 to 80 minutes, making it Brahms's longest composition. Unlike most large religious works, the German Requiem was not written in response to a commission or for a public event, and so efforts to trace its inspiration are somewhat diffuse. The most common English renderings of "Blessed are" or "Blessed they" generate multiple problems at the very outset. Nevertheless, the work was soon performed all over Europe, including in a piano duet performance in London in 1871. Perhaps by refusing to take a point of view, Toscanini suggests an inherent complexity to Brahms' conception, which contains both elements; while others vary their readings to convey both aspects in the appropriate sections, Toscanini's consistency leaves much to the imagination, making us work harder than we might wish to infer the emotional content. The funeral march got Brahms going, Musgrave surmises. Jessop apprenticed with Shaw during the 1980s, and stepped in to conduct the 1999 recording of Shaws Requiem translation in the wake of Shaws death. When his brother was killed, Frink says his mother told him, That should have been you, Robert. It tortured him the rest of his life., People close to Shaw would put up with his difficult side because, says Jones, we knew that there was a more profound exposure to the music and exposure to him that was possible. Craig Jessop remembers him as a towering intellect, the likes of which I had never encountered. On December 1, 1867 the first three movements were given in Vienna. The final movement at last delivers a long-deferred prayer for the dead from Revelations 14:13. As Specht put it: "By its use of a German text in place of the Latin, it should speak far more impressively to every mourner than a setting of a dead language, the solemnity of which could affect but a few." The performance itself faithfully follows Shaw's own interpretations. Robert Shaw considers the result "a most sensitive gleaning of the Christian scriptures of a profound, loving and most personal order its own argument and its own organism" whose "spirit lies in the selection, not just the treatment, of the text." Symphony created by a computers analysis of incomplete musical But while using the same forces, Lehmann and Kempe exemplify two interpretive extremes within that tradition. ], Willem Mengelberg, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Toonkunst Choir, Max Kloos, Jo Vincent (1940, Turnabout LP, 65'). As might be expected, the choral singing is rich and natural, with confident pacing. Without belittling others' valid proactive and personalized approaches, this is a performance for the ages that can be heard repeatedly and cherished by future generations. Murgrove suggests that Brahms viewed the Bible as more of a literary work than a theological statement a repository of human experience and wisdom and the highest manifestation of thought and feeling. Jessop considers it the pinnacle of craftsmanship in composition for chorus. It is especially directed toward conductors, but it is also useful for choristers and At a slow and patient 79 minutes, time seems suspended in a rarified atmosphere of deep spirituality. WebFor the Requiem, he draws melodic inspiration from the tunes and rhythms of Gregorian chant, which thought in similarly long phrases. Musgrave describes him as a cultural Christian; Brahms referred to himself as a heathen. Absent from his Requiem are both the specter of eternal damnation and the promise of redemption through Christs sacrifice. For many, this is the expressive heart of the work, recalling Brahmss own tragic loss. WebA German Requiem, To Words of the Holy Scriptures, Op. The stillness and tranquillity of the final movement brings a satisfying sense of closure and healing. Nearly 30 years later, Brahms asked his publisher to remove the metronome marks from the score, saying that good friends had persuaded him to add them. The pace picks up in the last two movements, beautifully conveying the mourners healing. Yet he achieved a magnificent German Requiem with these Stockholm forces, undoubtedly due to the special rapport developed during his wartime visits to the neutral Sweden, which had provided his only contact with music and emissaries of the free world. Because Brahms chose his own text to express his personal sentiments, Musgrave says text and music go hand in hand in a way they cannot when a composer is assigned a text to work with. It calls for a depth of tone which is almost unforgiving in its demands. Reversing the harsh judgments of flat consistency in earlier Grove editions, he considers VI to "contain passages as expressively declamatory as anything in the 19th century." The composer was moving between cities, seeking professional opportunities. While I personally prefer a more vivid reading, I still have to admire the purity of concept and the extreme to which Celibidache molds the work to his unique vision. Hardings sense of structure in this 2019 recording is assured and persuasive, evoking a slow, dignified but steady move from the depths of grief into a bruised but courageous renewal. The full work was first heard in Leipzig on February 18, 1869, completed by the lovely new fifth movement. Robert Shaw rehearsing the Atlanta Symphony at Carnegie Hall.

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