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. The choir sounds both substantial and luminous, with crystalline German, effectively navigating the long and demanding fugues. WebLSU Digital Commons | Louisiana State University Research All the score's details are heard clearly in an ideal balance without highlighting even the superstar soloists are placed back in the proper perspective, so that Fischer-Dieskau's effortless conviction and Schwartzkopf's sweet modesty are embedded within, rather than dominating, their sections. He was so impressed that he organised a performance for Good Friday, to be conducted by the composer himself. 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. On December 1, 1867 the first three movements were given in Vienna. We got to the downbeat of O schne Nacht, and he started to cry. Robertson further notes that there is no official Lutheran funeral service, nor even a prayer for the dead, thus reflecting Martin Luther's teachings that faith alone frees believers from sin and that, once saved, their entry into heaven is automatic. The underlying problem may have reflected a dispute over Brahms generally; as Edwin Evans noted in 1912: "no one seems able either to like or to dislike him only a little. Some of my colleagues think Im crazy, admits Musgrave, but Im convinced Ochs was right. It begins with the pulse. The logic of the voice leading is as inevitable as if decreed from heaven., Shaw was famously obsessive in his efforts to understand composers intentions and distill them for his singers. He was absorbing musical influences ranging from Wagners operas to Schuberts choral and orchestral works, which were emerging posthumously in Vienna. Mengelberg's fusing of warmth and vitality produces an intensely human document that set a high standard for those that would follow. 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. Later, he replaced the first movement Andante with Ziemlich langsam und mit Ausdruck (Quite slow and with expression), suggesting a weightier, more nuanced conception. A guide to Brahmss A German Requiem and its best recordings, Journalist and Critic, BBC Music Magazine. You cant use that voice to begin rehearsals. For the Requiem, or any piece, he refused to tax his singers voices to achieve balance. Brahms compiled passages from Luthers Bible for his 1868 Ein deutsches Requiem, texts that focused on comfort for the living rather than judgment and pleas for mercy on behalf of the deceased. 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. Many accounts of this recording tend to apologize for the need to overcome post-war deprivations (excuse me while I dry my tears), but what emerges is a fine combination of beauty and fervor that radiates sincerity. Remarkably, perhaps overrun by the stereo revolution, this splendid monaural recording was never released at the time and was issued only in 1972 on the budget Odyssey LP label. That aspect of the Requiem deserves its own attention. Finally, 1947 brought not one but two fine studio recordings of the German Requiem. Musgrave teaches graduate-level courses in critical editing at the Juilliard School, and one of his contributions to a new edition of Brahmss complete works will be the Requiem. A choral introduction of meandering harmonies searches for earthly stability ("We have no continuing city, but we seek one to come"), the baritone raises the prospect of resurrection ("Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not sleep "), the chorus excitedly proclaims victory ("Death, where is thy sting? As conductors, we so often have to push singers to make the rhythm. But perhaps the most significant but overlooked word in the title is the first and least prominent: "Ein" ("A"). Vocally, Brahms is as exhausting a piece as a chorus is asked to sing, he told the video interviewer. WebBrahms chose the texts that were dearest to him. The timings, both overall and of individual movements, are somewhat deceptive, as his fast sections are very rapid, while the slow portions tend to be quite measured. For Brahms work on the German Requiem was cathartic; he told friends upon its completion: "Now I am consoled. The performance itself faithfully follows Shaw's own interpretations. The Symphony is joined by the Kalamazoo Bach Festival Chorus for a bit of Mozart and the concerts focal point: Johannes Brahms heartfelt Requiem to hope, courage, and the anticipation of joy. Even so, Alex Robertson notes that Brahms' return to the source writings carries historical weight, as it invokes the earliest Christian burial arts and practices, as preserved in the Roman catacombs, in which themes of rest, peace and sleep are combined with depictions of everyday life activities. As evidenced by the timings noted so far, the traditional "German" pacing for the German Requiem tends to be measured, and so here. It calls for a depth of tone which is almost unforgiving in its demands. The former is 28 bars long and tonicizes E-flat major. He must have been preoccupied with it for a long time. Nola Frink must know how that feels. WebAbstract: Johannes Brahms was the first composer to claim the requiem genre without utilizing the Catholic Missa pro defunctis text. That may have had something to do with family history. His death on January 25, 1999 came just weeks before a planned recording session with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which he had intended to conduct. And as is equally apparent from the timings, the "American" tradition, if indeed there was one, favored far quicker tempos and a feeling of overall vitality. The worst thing you can do is start by trying to sing a piece on pitch. Indeed, the performers sound like they had something important to prove to assert the intrinsic and abiding musicality of their culture. Robert Shaw rehearsing the Atlanta Symphony at Carnegie Hall. Either people insist upon regarding him as the legitimate successor to Beethoven or they deny him the position of a great master altogether." Indeed in terms of tempos alone this is quite possibly the most sizable variance among all known Toscanini performances of any given work. It was stunningly original. At the time of World War II, Shaw was a New York playboy, according to Frink, and his brother was a military chaplain. That was his custom, say the conductors who worked with him, but Shaw found it absolutely essential with the Requiem. 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. 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." Johannes Brahms's many masterpieces have a confidence and ebullience, an irresistible lyricism and melodic charm, and show no sign of losing their appeal more than 120 years after his death. How Lovely are thy Dwellings Shaws longtime personal assistant, Nola Frink, was by his side as he struggled to find the right syllable for every note. Jessop was singing for Shaw in France, and a concert of Brahms songs all related to evening, was to take place in a Toulouse cloister. Jessop considers it the pinnacle of craftsmanship in composition for chorus. requiem Hermann Abendroth, Radio Berlin Orchestra and Chorus, Heinz Friedrich, Lisbeth Schmidt-Glanzel (1952, Tahra CD, 76'). Indeed, Schumann had urged Brahms to "direct his magic wand where the massed forces of chorus and orchestra may lend him their power." Yet even in the 20th century, Specht castigated its fugues as "petrification of rough-hewn themes" and as "music for the eyes" that doesn't move the soul, even while conceding that "never before had the departed been sung to rest with a lullaby of such solemnity and consoling beauty." He also prefaces the German Requiem with a fine bonus Brahms' early Begrbnisgesang ("Burial Song"), a sensitive but rather routine setting for choir, brass and winds of a Lutheran hymn that speaks of eternal life, even while ending with a somber reminder of death's inevitability. Brahms once stated it would be as well to call the work A Human Requiem. In the first movement, theres a big A and a coda. In keeping with the two soloists' respective functions, the baritone aptly quakes with excitement, while the soprano is serene. 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. The author of this paper "The Symphony No 1 in C Minor Brahms" examines and analyzes the Symphony No. There is no rushing here; this is a measured, patient walk towards reconciliation with death. In a perverse stroke of fortune, earlier releases of the Toscanini recording were sufficiently blurry so as to preclude perception of the actual words, thus, ironically, relegating the piece largely to musical abstraction and, in so doing, restoring its artistic integrity. 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. Take away the text. "A German Requiem" by Brahms DW 04/09/2020 There was ample precedent for that approach, but none among major religious works of the time. For his own recording, Shaw tempered the Maestro's fundamental objectivity with a welcome infusion of flexibility and warmth that avoided a feeling of impersonal mechanical rigidity. 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. But you must make it clear if youre not absolutely sure so the next generation knows where they stand. The vibrato-free Orchestre Rvolutionnaire et Romantique may divide listeners, but the payoff of this live performance from 2008 is the fabulous recorded sound quality across the range, from the throbbing subterranean bass which opens the work to the piercing, high solo winds of the inner movements. This human focus, as well Scholars note that in 1636 Heinrich Schtz had composed a Teutsche Begrbnis-Missa ("German Funeral Mass") which he had described as "a Concerto in the form of a German Burial Mass" and which had used the same opening text as the German Requiem, but Brahms may not have known it. 2012-2023, Chorus America. For Shaw, rehearsal time was precious. 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. The Wagnerians were telling you what the future was; Brahms was hobnobbing with scholars, unearthing music nobody knew. Musgrave dismisses the claim of Brahmss first biographer, Max Kalbeck, that the Requiem began as a cantata, instead favoring a somewhat related explanation from German conductor Siegfried Ochs. 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!). No other piece of music captivated iconic conductor Robert Shaw more than the Brahms Requiem. But there is pathos here, too; each phrase breathes naturally, never sounding regimented. Thus, Armin Zebrowski infers from the fourth movement's blessing of those who dwell in the house of the Lord a reciprocal meaning of God dwelling within us and thus giving rise to true peace, which, in turn, magnifies the significance of the tranquil musical setting. He was absorbing musical The pace picks up in the last two movements, beautifully conveying the mourners healing. Musgrave notes that the result enabled Brahms to achieve the same pattern of integrating variations of familiar musical forms that characterizes all of his mature long-form works. Take, for example, the opening phrase, "Selig sind." While sorting through Schumann's estate, Brahms came upon a bare reference to a German Requiem and felt compelled to take up the task. The German Requiem bears the distinction of having had no less than three premiere performances. Brahms crafted the structure of his German Requiem to bolster the impact of the disparate textual sources he had assembled. WebThroughout the Requiem Brahms contrasts the transience of human existence with the eternity of God, and he is not shy about underlining the difference. Brahms - German Requiem - Programme Notes - Choirs 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. The soloists are nicely restrained and the choral fugues unfold with clarity and detailed interplay of their vocal lines. 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. 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 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). The quotations and other factual information for this article are primarily derived from the following sources: Armin Zebrowski: "Brahms' German Requiem" (article in, R. Kinloch Anderson Karajan/Berlin (Angel SB-3838, 1977), William Mann Klemperer/Philharmonia (Angel SB-3624, 1961), Siegfried Kross Karajan/Berlin (DG 2707 018, 196x), Leonard Burkat Levine/Chicago (RCA ARC2-5002, 1977), Joseph Braunstein Bamberger/Hamburg (Nonesuch HB 73003 (1966), Karl Geiringer Haitink/Vienna State Opera (Philips 6769 055, 196x), H. Kevil Koch/Berlin RSO (Musical Heritage Society 3724/25, William S. Newman Barenboim/London (DG 2707 066, 1979), Walter Neimann Ormandy/Philadelphia (Columbia M2S 686, 1962), Robert Shaw Robert Shaw/RCA Symphony (RCA LM 6004, 1948), Andre Tubeuf and Alan Blyth Karajan/Vienna (EMI 61010, 1988), Robert Pascall Norrington/London Classical Players (EMI 54658, 1993), Steven Ledbetter Shaw/Atlanta (Telarc CD-80092, 1984), Robert Shaw Jessop/Utah (Telarc CD-80501, 1999), Patrick Lang Celibidache/Munich (EMI 56843, 1999), Martin Smith Gardiner/Orchestra Revolutionnaire (Philips 432 140, 1991), Eva Pinter Schuricht/Stuttgart (Hanssler 93.144, 2004), Roger Norrington his CD of the Brahms Symphony # 1 (EMI 54286, 1991). 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. As a result, Lehmann leaves an overall impression of implacable sadness, only occasionally relieved by especially prominent brass within the shallow sonics. The second movement combines thoughts of mortality ("All flesh is as grass"), patience, the permanence of God and the joy of redemption. April 10, 1868. The study highlights the four main movements of this symphony, the language in which musical ideas are presented, the rhythm, repetition of exposition. It comprises seven movements, which together last 65 to 80 minutes, making it Brahms's longest composition. 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 R. Kinloch Anderson cites the ghostly sound of the opening as proof of Brahms' sense of orchestral color and the patter of harp, flute and pizzicato violins as his sensitivity to specific words (in this instance accompanying mention of raindrops). 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. Take away the dynamics. Three more movements may have been completed as a cantata by 1861, but then work appears to have lapsed until early 1865, when Brahms was jolted once more by the death of his beloved mother. It was important for us to make things as easy as possible, because he could be extremely hard on himself. She related the memory in mid-April to an audience that could well appreciate its poignancy, an intimate group of choral musicians assembled in Atlantas Woodruff Arts Center for the Robert Shaw Centenary Symposium on the Brahms Requiem, presented by Chorus America and hosted by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (ASO). From the very outset, the German Requiem has found favor, both with choral societies (especially amateur ones), who appreciated its relatively undemanding technical requirements and stamina, and with audiences, who undoubtedly welcomed its warm messages of comfort and hope. But while using the same forces, Lehmann and Kempe exemplify two interpretive extremes within that tradition. WebThis is a strategy Brahms will use several more times during the German Requiem. Brahms' compilation of texts reflected his own religious tenets. The most common English renderings of "Blessed are" or "Blessed they" generate multiple problems at the very outset. 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 By far the slowest German Requiem on record, this concert both exemplifies and validates Celibidache's view. The dead march which follows ranks with his most outstanding accomplishments: haunting of key, with violins and violas subdivided into three parts each, and over a relentless distant tattoo in the timpani. 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. Brahmss friend Albert Dietrich sent the score to the organist of Bremen Cathedral, Karl Reinthaler. Ratzlaff remembers a letter he sent to his chorus following a problem-filled rehearsal during New Yorks Mostly Mozart Festival sometime in the early 70s. Brahmss A German Requiem: Reconsidering Its Biblical, Alas, the only source is a shortwave transmission; even after exhaustive restoration efforts severe irreparable sonic defects of constant swish, considerable phase distortion, low fidelity, dropouts and a major gap remain, leaving more to the imagination than this extraordinary souvenir deserves.