Given its vast performance tradition, its hard to pin down Brahmss intentions. In the first movement, theres a big A and a coda. The title 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. The second movement is shapelessly slow; the fourth treacly and muffled. He would never do that. In working on a piece, Shaw guided his singers through the music painstakingly, one facet at a time. James Levines 2004 recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra would reinforce that view it is dirge-like without grandeur, unrelentingly static. 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. 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. The final movement at last delivers a long-deferred prayer for the dead from Revelations 14:13. 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. Indeed, the performers sound like they had something important to prove to assert the intrinsic and abiding musicality of their culture. 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. WebSDG is happy to present last recording issued from the 2008 Brahms: Roots and Memories tour, in which John Eliot Gardiner and his ensembles explored the music of Johannes Brahms. Shaws approach facilitated his singers understanding of structure and their ability to avoid mistakes. Later, he replaced the first movement Andante with Ziemlich langsam und mit Ausdruck (Quite slow and with expression), suggesting a weightier, more nuanced conception. The second movement the most overwhelming, almost Verdian number begins with an exquisite weariness, evoking the dragging feet of slowly processing mourners. 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. More generally, Abendroth tends to approach the work schematically, inflating tempos and dynamics to reflect the immediate degree of excitement or repose at any given moment. 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. Siegfried Kross rejects these specific stimuli, deeming the work far too closely connected with Brahms' whole personality. WebA Conductor's Analysis of Johannes Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem, Opus 45 - Sep 06 2022 Brahms's "Ein Deutsches Requiem" - Aug 13 2020 Brahms's Requiem the present study will contribute an Schenkerian account of musical processes that are integral parts of the work's philosophical dialectic. Brahmss choice of texts is central to the Requiems originality. You can unsubscribe at any time. That aspect of the Requiem deserves its own attention. 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. The sixth movement is the perfect dramatic corollary to the second, Goernes surprisingly tender utterance of We shall be changed leading to tremendously exciting choral singing of Death, where is thy sting?. 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. 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. Modern commentators are able to view the work with greater perspective; writing in the 2001 Grove Dictionary, George Bozarth hails its diversity and historical awareness, ranging from the movement II opening of strict homophony to the elaborate neo-Handelian fugues that close III and VI, and even the IV opening that evokes a Viennese waltz. The most common English renderings of "Blessed are" or "Blessed they" generate multiple problems at the very outset. 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." Hans Gal recalled that Brahms first heard Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at about the same time and was overwhelmed with its monumental ideas and treatment. Nola Frink must know how that feels. 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. ], Willem Mengelberg, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Toonkunst Choir, Max Kloos, Jo Vincent (1940, Turnabout LP, 65'). Yet the title Johannes Brahms bestowed upon his Ein Deutches Requiem ("A German Requiem") conveys a world of genuine meaning. 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. Thats the sign of scholarship.. The text that Brahms fashioned is derived from the Old and New Testaments as well as the Apocrypha, with all but the fourth movement a blend of these sources. It was with these purposes in mind that I The requiem emerged from a decade of turmoil. But while using the same forces, Lehmann and Kempe exemplify two interpretive extremes within that tradition. The fifth movement is that ravishing soprano solo intoning a mother's comfort. At the time of World War II, Shaw was a New York playboy, according to Frink, and his brother was a military chaplain. A guide to Brahmss A German Requiem and its best recordings, Journalist and Critic, BBC Music Magazine. Also noteworthy was Shaws instruction that singers begin by count singing between pianississimo and pianissimo. Brahms' compilation of texts reflected his own religious tenets. But perhaps the most significant but overlooked word in the title is the first and least prominent: "Ein" ("A"). The rest of the year was preoccupied with concerts and other compositions, but Brahms returned to the Requiem in early 1866. WebRather like one of the best contemporary requiems, that of Classic FM's erstwhile Composer in Residence Howard Goodall, A German Requiem is not primarily a Mass for the dead. This overview is Sergiu Celibidache, Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and Chorus, Munich Bach Choir, Franz Gerihsen, Arleen Auger (1981, EMI, 88'). 45 (German: Ein deutsches Requiem, nach Worten der heiligen Schrift) by Johannes Brahms, is a large-scale work for chorus, orchestra, and a soprano and a baritone soloist, composed between 1865 and 1868. Three movements were trialled unsuccessfully in Vienna, but some listeners recognised that it was perhaps too austere, too Bach-Protestant for the pleasure-loving Viennese. The soloists are nicely restrained and the choral fugues unfold with clarity and detailed interplay of their vocal lines. The event was poorly publicized, so the audience, according to Jessop, consisted only of Shaws wife Caroline, a few other people, and a cat. It provides historical information, performance considerations, musical analysis, and resource material for all who enjoy the musicology behind this magnificent work. The contradictions in Brahmss theologyreligious skepticism combined with undeniable spiritualityappealed deeply to Robert Shaw, according to Craig Jessop. Shaws longtime personal assistant, Nola Frink, was by his side as he struggled to find the right syllable for every note. The most palpable point of distinction is with the far more prevalent Catholic requiem Mass. 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. WebVince Sheehan explores the themes, structure and text of this choral masterpiece. The result was a close-knit fabric reflecting the truths Brahms drew from Christian tradition. It comprises seven movements, which together last 65 to 80 minutes, making this work In keeping with the two soloists' respective functions, the baritone aptly quakes with excitement, while the soprano is serene. By 1872 its text had been translated into English. 1 in C minor, by Johannes Brahms. No other piece of music captivated iconic conductor Robert Shaw more than the Brahms Requiem. Following her separation from Brahmss father, the composers beloved mother Christiane died of a stroke, aged 76, in early 1865. WebTo make a thorough study of these lessons is to became a better teacher or student, and also to became a more discerning musician. What impresses me now, as an older man, is seeing Shaw free to float, to make a vocal line. 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. WebIt is an oratorio, a choral setting of biblical texts, and has little to do with the Latin Requiem Mass. Even though Mengelberg culminates with a slowly unfolding and majestic VI fugue and a ruminative finale, the overall impression is not one of mournful regret, but rather a contemplative celebration of life. As summarized by Michael Murgrove, the overall focus of the work is on comfort, hope, reassurance and reward for personal effort rather than the judgment, vengeance, sacrifice and overt references to Christian symbolism that characterize the Latin requiem mass. Yet the two realizations, while both exceptional, are far from identical the Norrington is notably leaner, crisper and faster and with good reason our only indications are indirect and thus somewhat speculative. 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. 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. George London adds a fine but subtle human touch as a bass, he has to strain at the very top of his range and thus magnifies the struggle expressed in the text written for a baritone. and then plunges into a magnificent choral fugue assuring that "the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God." However, Reinthaler pointed out a hitch, namely that none of the movements clearly stated Christian doctrine. The result is a constant tension between leisurely, steady tempos that suggest a patient unfolding filled with lyrical affection and the tensile strength and crisp articulation that strain to leap forward with constant bursts of energy but never do. As Andr Tubeuf quipped, Vienna may have lacked everything at the time except music. By far the slowest German Requiem on record, this concert both exemplifies and validates Celibidache's view. 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." Singers were given numbers to represent their voice ranges, starting with 101 for the lowest bass, a tool Shaw used to adjust balances in advance, saving precious rehearsal time. 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). The recording is somewhat crude and uncomfortably poised between clear vocals and hazy instrumentals. 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. 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 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. The composer was moving between cities, seeking professional opportunities. Shaws message, as paraphrased by Ratzlaff, read, As far as Im concerned, its fine whether you come in or not. WebAn analysis and overview of Johannes Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem. Kargs sound is dramatic, if not ideally matched to Goerne, but again it is the silky-smooth orchestral-choral sound that wins over. Musical illustrations are performed on the violin and piano. With the sixth movement we reach the dramatic climax. All Rights Reserved. He solved all the challenges long before the first rehearsal of a piece in a way that made total sense to a singer.. One doesnt have time not to do that, she said of his meticulous planning. WebSummary. Indeed, he often seems to thwart our expectations an ardently sung and highly operatic V is drained of its usual sense of comfort, and the clipped articulation leading up to the VI fugue falls flat when the fugue itself reverts to a rather reflexive vantage. Interviewed for the video, he called it the fastest way to unify sound and find metric divisions, adding, youd be surprised how you can undiscipline a choir by beginning with text the first time., Answering a symposium participants question, Shaws longtime assistant, Norman Mackenzie, current director of choruses at the ASO, explained the rationale for count singing this way: Its the principle of building blocks. Schumann's widow Clara proclaimed the finished work as the fulfillment of her husband's prophesy and after a planned Schumann commemoration fell through, Brahms wrote: "You ought to know how much a work like the [German] Requiem belongs to Schumann.". At that point there were six movements, settings of Lutheran Bible texts Brahms had collated himself, which trace a trajectory from suffering to acceptance: the first movement opens, Blessed are they who mourn; the dramatic second movement opens by declaring that all flesh is like grass, but the word of the Lord endures; the third introduces the baritone soloist, who pleads with God for acceptance of his transience; the sunny fourth, the most popular standalone number, contemplates the beauty of heaven; the original fifth movement matches the second, setting the famous The trumpet shall sound, and continuing to demand Death, where is thy sting?; reconciliation is achieved in the last movement with the words Blessed are the dead. Rethinking Brahms - Jul 24 2021 The memory will stay with me all of my life.. (Even so, Paul Minear reconciles the underlying message of Brahms' approach with fundamental Christian tradition, which integrates suffering (the Passion) with joy (the Resurrection) and stresses the need to temper our universal fear of death through faith in something greater than the mortal self.) Some Others While the stereo era has produced many rewarding and enjoyable recordings of the German Requiem, most strike me as of somewhat lesser interest than the ones above. Shaws rehearsals for a 1990 Carnegie Hall performance of the Brahms Requiem, captured on video and screened at the symposium, begin with the opening notes, but not with the words Selig sind. Instead, the singers intone One and two and tee and four and, one and two and tee and four and, one and. The technique, count singing, is often associated with Shaw. The fidelity is only fair, but it far outstrips Furtwngler's other extant recording at the 1947 Lucerne Festival (with Hans Hotter and Elizabeth Schwartzkopf, also on Music & Arts). 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. That may have had something to do with family history. Recorded live at the Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 2008. 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. 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. A large chorus can be a mucilaginous mess. Yet in the more segmented movements he manages to differentiate the individual sections, thus maintaining their integrity and distinctive character, even while integrating them through logical transitions. Recordings of Brahmss large-scale choral-orchestral works have to pass two acid tests: first, the balancing of massive structures so that the whole thing hangs together, neither rushing nor dragging;and secondly, the handling of texture, so that listeners can hear individual orchestral-vocal lines and timbres, but also enjoy the seamless fusion of the gigantic collective sound which give such works their meaning. Where does music begin? She is a regular critic for BBC Music Magazine and broadcaster on BBC Radio 3 and BBC TV. From America came an equally fine set led by Toscanini's choral director. Most of us would say, Well, well adjust that when we hear it. observes Jones. 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 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). Brahms once stated it would be as well to call the work A Human Requiem. A compromise for the premiere was achieved by including the aria I Know that My Redeemer Liveth from Handels Messiah. He was so impressed that he organised a performance for Good Friday, to be conducted by the composer himself. 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? WebAn analysis and overview of Johannes Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem. The preparation of a new edition of the work by the team of the Brahms Collected Edition has taken decades but Brahms-lovers can rejoice that it is finally in print. In any case, if he began the Requiem by intending to create a chorale-based work in the tradition of Bach, he soon abandoned the idea, says Musgrave, because that influence reappears only in the sixth movement. 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. 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. Lott presents what he considers the most important hermeneutical guide to the Requiem musical analysisin Chapter Five, explaining that Brahms set his And the way we learn about his feelings is by learning to speak his languageas perfectly and trustingly as we can.. 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. These two historically-informed recordings bring us squarely to the question of the performance characteristics that Brahms would have wanted to hear. This human focus, as well It is both curious and disturbing that such an accessible work had to wait until 1947 for its first studio recordings clearly a sign of producers' low confidence in its commercial prospects. 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. 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. It was not immune from the 19th century temptation to find specific fanciful references in place of musical allusion; thus, biographer Richard Specht writes of the opening: "One has the impression of seeing a tranquil procession of white-clad women walking slowly past sacred pools toward a chapel ." Brahms humbly suggests that all we can do is accept our unavoidable fate while life goes on for the benefit of the living, who must make the most of their brief time and pass along their deeds, findings, thoughts, hopes and wisdom as others have done before them. Nowadays, systematic building of discipline is far less common, and so is the irascible, cantankerous kind of conductor Shaw could sometimes be. 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. 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!). The orchestral sound is revelatory, evoking the austerity of a church organ without relinquishing a jot of emotional weight. 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. Perhaps it was Lehmann's reputation as an early proponent of period performance practice that led him to a light texture and a nearly complete absence of inflection (and in these ways his record serves as a forebear of more recent historically-informed performances). Perhaps to be heard above the timpanist's din, according to Specht the "singers were intent on shouting each other down wildly" and became "distorted into a deafening agglomeration of sound." 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. 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 Similarly, the Andante con moto of the final movement was replaced with Feierlich (ceremonially) regardless of how it is done, it remains challenging even for experienced choirs. And in his 1997 biography, Jan Swofford degrades it as "too consistent in mood, without enough variety of texture, tempo and feeling to create the illusion of a satisfying story unfolding throughout.". 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). 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. Even so, while the tenor is fine, the soprano soloist is more grating than comforting, so you may want to invoke historical precedent and emulate the work's second premiere by skipping the fifth movement. 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. Brahms had long carried the idea of writing a requiem. 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. Nearly all the great Furtwngler concert recordings reflect his long leadership of the Berlin or Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras (and the corresponding familiarity and empathy of their musicians with his deeply personal and erratic style), and his results with foreign ensembles were mostly disappointing. He was accused of micromanaging, but that couldnt be more wrong, says Mackenzie. How do its origins, Brahmss choice of texts, and the works performance history contribute to our understanding? Robert Shaw rehearsing the Atlanta Symphony at Carnegie Hall. Herbert von Karajan: (1) Vienna Philharmonic, Vienna Singverein der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Hans Hotter, Elizabeth Schwartzkopf (1947, EMI; 75'); (2) Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Singverein, Eberhard Waechter, Gundula Janowitz (1964, DG, 76'); (3) Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Singverein, Jos Van Dam, Anna Tomowa-Sintow (1977, Angel LP, 76'). But the catalyst for the decision seems to have been the death of his mother on February 2, 1865. Critics, though, were less enchanted, often tempering admiration of its universal message and its integration of old and new musical elements with concern over its deliberately attenuated range and overriding sobriety.