Ein deutsches Requiem

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For the short story by Jorge Luis Borges, see Deutsches Requiem (short story).

Ein deutsches Requiem, nach Worten der heiligen Schrift, Op. 45 (English: A German Requiem, to words of the Holy Scriptures) is a large-scale work for chorus, orchestra, and soloists, composed by Johannes Brahms between 1865 and 1868. Ein deutsches Requiem is sacred but non-liturgical. It comprises seven movements, which together last 70-80 minutes, making Ein deutsches Requiem Brahms's longest composition.

Contents

[edit] History

Brahms's mother died in February 1865, a loss that painfully grieved him and that may well have inspired Ein deutsches Requiem. Brahms's lingering feelings over Robert Schumann's death in July 1856 may also have been a motivation, though his reticence about such matters makes this uncertain.[1]

By the end of April 1865, Brahms had completed the first, second, and fourth movements. The second movement used some previously abandoned musical material written in 1854, the year of Schumann's mental collapse and attempted suicide, and of Brahms's move to Düsseldorf to assist Clara Schumann and her seven children.

Brahms completed all but what is now the fifth movement by August 1866. Johannes Herbeck conducted the first three movements in Vienna on December 1, 1867. Though the partial premiere went poorly, all six movements then extant were premiered in the Bremen cathedral six months later on Good Friday, 10 April 1868, with Brahms conducting and Julius Stockhausen as the baritone soloist. The performance was a great success and marked a turning point in his career.[2]

Brahms added the fifth movement in May 1868. It was first sung in Zurich on September 12, 1868 by Ida Suter-Weber, with Friedrich Hegar conducting the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra. The final, seven-movement version of Ein deutsches Requiem was premiered in Leipzig on February 18, 1869 with Carl Reinecke conducting the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Chorus, and soloists Emilie Bellingrath-Wagner and Franz Krükl.

[edit] Text

Brahms assembled the libretto to Ein deutsches Requiem himself. In contrast to the traditional Roman Catholic requiem mass, which employs a standardized text in Latin, Ein deutsches Requiem derives its text from Martin Luther's German Bible translation.

Brahms's first known use of the title A German Requiem was in an 1865 letter to Clara Schumann in which he wrote that he intended for the piece to be "a sort of German Requiem". Brahms was quite moved when he found out years later that Robert Schumann had planned a work of the same name.[3] German refers primarily to the language rather than the intended audience. Brahms told Karl Martin Reinthaler, director of music at the Bremen cathedral, that he would have gladly called the work A Human Requiem.[4]

Although the Requiem Mass in the Roman Catholic liturgy begins with prayers for the dead ("Grant them eternal rest, O Lord"), Ein deutsches Requiem emphasizes comforting the living, beginning with the text "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted." A comparable sacred, humanist worldview persists through the work.[5]

In fact, Brahms purposefully omitted Christian dogma.[6] In his correspondence with Karl Reinthaler, when Reinthaler expressed concern over this, Brahms refused to add references to "the redeeming death of the Lord", as Reinthaler put it, such as John 3:16. In the Bremen performance of the piece, Reinthaler took the liberty of inserting the aria "I know that my redeemer liveth" from Handel's Messiah, with a view to satisfy the clergy.[7]

[edit] Movements

[edit] Orchestration

Ein deutsches Requiem is scored for:

Notable orchestrational devices include the first movement's lack of violins, as well as piccolo, clarinets, one pair of horns, trumpets, tuba, and timpani; and the use of harps at the close of both the first and seventh movements, most striking in the latter because at that point they have not played since the middle of the second movement.

Also notable is that the four voice parts of the choir do not divide, e.g. into first and second sopranos, as often as they do in other major choral works of its era.

An alternative version of the work was prepared by Brahms to be performed as a piano duet, four hands on one piano. This version also incorporates the vocal parts, suggesting that it was intended as a self-contained version probably for at-home use, but the vocal parts can also be omitted, making the duet version an acceptable substitute accompaniment for choir and soloists in circumstances where a full orchestra is unavailable. The first complete (excepting the yet-unwritten fifth movement) performance of the Requiem in London, in July 1871 at the home of Sir Henry Thompson and his wife, the pianist Kate Loder (Lady Thompson), utilized this piano-duet accompaniment (and was, incidentally, sung in English).

[edit] Unifying motif

Ein deutsches Requiem is unified compositionally by a three-note motif of a leap of a major third, followed by a (usually) half-step in the same direction. The first exposed choral entry presents the motif in the soprano voice (F-A-B flat). This motif pervades every movement and much of the thematic material in the piece.[8]

[edit] Notable recordings

Listed alphabetically by conductor

[edit] Critical appraisal

Not all critics have responded favourably to the work. In particular George Bernard Shaw wrote that "it could only have come from the establishment of a first-class undertaker."

[edit] References

  • Steinberg, Michael. "Johannes Brahms: A German Requiem on Words from Holy Scripture, op. 45." Choral Masterworks: A Listener's Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005, 68-74.
  1. ^ Steinberg, 69.
  2. ^ Steinberg, 68-69
  3. ^ Steinberg, 69
  4. ^ Steinberg, 70
  5. ^ Steinberg, 70
  6. ^ See analysis of the work under External links.
  7. ^ State of the Arts., page 7
  8. ^ Steinberg, 71-74

[edit] External links