The intense concentration and focus of this 1943 Toscanini concert is the converse of Mengelberg's more intuitive interpretive approach. To Musgrave, the familiar fourth movement, Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen, seems an odd man out. Did Brahms compose it at an earlier time? Daniel Barenboim, London Philharmonic, Edinburgh Festival Chorus, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Edith Mathis (1979, DG, 79'). Karajan applies his trademark polish, but without lapsing into the slickness that would tend to dominate his later work. 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. Jessop considers it the pinnacle of craftsmanship in composition for chorus. But while using the same forces, Lehmann and Kempe exemplify two interpretive extremes within that tradition. As a result, Lehmann leaves an overall impression of implacable sadness, only occasionally relieved by especially prominent brass within the shallow sonics. 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. WebThis is a strategy Brahms will use several more times during the German Requiem. I feel like an eagle, soaring ever higher and higher." It gave the composer a sense of how massive the piece would be. 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. It calls for a depth of tone which is almost unforgiving in its demands. In his reminiscences, Ochs recalls Brahms saying the Requiems first and second movements contain elements of a well-known chorale. 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. 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). Nowadays, systematic building of discipline is far less common, and so is the irascible, cantankerous kind of conductor Shaw could sometimes be. Shaws approach facilitated his singers understanding of structure and their ability to avoid mistakes. 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. A compromise for the premiere was achieved by including the aria I Know that My Redeemer Liveth from Handels Messiah. One doesnt have time not to do that, she said of his meticulous planning. Christiane Karg (soprano), Matthias Goerne (baritone); Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra/ Daniel Harding. Matthias Goerne is a superbly racked soloist in the third movement anyone who has helplessly contemplated their own mortality can relate to the Promethean despair (and the rage, in the repeated section) of that molten, burnished voice. While Katherine Fuge and Matthew Brook are not the most distinctive soloists, they integrate beautifully into an ensemble characterised by creamily smooth strings and the Monteverdi Choirs strong but agile sound. 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. Robert Shaw rehearsing the Atlanta Symphony at Carnegie Hall. Nor was Brahms likely to have known an obscure 1818 Deutsches Requiem that Franz Schubert had written for his brother. In notes for the release, Shaw wrote that he had been torn for 50 years between viewing the German Requiem as a dramatic/narrative work "that might best connect with American performers and audiences in their own language" and a work that was primarily lyric, poetic or contemplative and that would be more revealing in the original. Robert Shaw: (1) RCA Symphony Orchestra and Chorale, James Pease, Eleanor Steber (1947, RCA; 65'); (2) Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Richard Stilwell, Arleen Auger (1983, Telarc; 70'). The structure of the Requiem is such a powerful thing, the way the end brings back the beginning through inversions and use of identical text: Selig sind. Ann Howard Jones took this opportunity for some practical advice: Structural analysis is the nitty-gritty of our work. The analysis starts big and goes lower and lower, she says. One of the most fascinating consequences of the composer's free selection of his libretto is the variety of interpretations his text has stimulated. 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. The orchestral sound is revelatory, evoking the austerity of a church organ without relinquishing a jot of emotional weight. This has led to much controversy in the best way to present his intentions. Yet, a translation that reflects the tight interdependence of Brahms' music and the sheer sound evoked by his original words seems elusive, if not utterly futile. 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. 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? That was his custom, say the conductors who worked with him, but Shaw found it absolutely essential with the Requiem. 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." Mengelberg had no qualms about performing the German Requiem during World War II in its intended language (albeit in an occupied country) but, while Toscanini's 1937 BBC concert had used the original text, perhaps to assuage anti-German feeling at the height of the War his New York concert was in an English translation (although the following year he would lead a broadcast concert of Beethoven's Fidelio in the original German). 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. 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.". 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. 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 performance was a huge success for Dietrich, it was simply overwhelming and Brahms was celebrated afterwards at a banquet. 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. WebFor the Requiem, he draws melodic inspiration from the tunes and rhythms of Gregorian chant, which thought in similarly long phrases. 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. Perchance through his title Brahms is modestly telling us that he did not purport to have created "the" definitive German requiem nor any other sort of authoritative proclamation, but rather sought to offer just one among infinite approaches toward understanding and grappling with the ultimate mystery of life and accepting the inescapable tragedy of our mortality. Brahms' compilation of texts reflected his own religious tenets. From America came an equally fine set led by Toscanini's choral director. 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. No other piece of music captivated iconic conductor Robert Shaw more than the Brahms Requiem. He sent her the fourth movement, and described the first and second movements. 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. Brahms crafted the structure of his German Requiem to bolster the impact of the disparate textual sources he had assembled. This overview is Speaking of slow performances As summarized by Patrick Lang in his CD liner notes, Celibidache's Brahms was thoroughly serious, weighty and deep, with controlled, internalized passion and severe aristocratic stillness governing all its emotions. Take away the text. 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. The miniature score 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. Steven Ledbetter agrees that although the text belongs to no formal liturgy of any church, it "nonetheless represents a deeply felt response to the central problem of human existence.". She is a regular critic for BBC Music Magazine and broadcaster on BBC Radio 3 and BBC TV. By the end, one feels no different from the start. The rest of the year was preoccupied with concerts and other compositions, but Brahms returned to the Requiem in early 1866. The requiem mass was a venerable musical genre by the time Brahms began to compose his, but Brahms requiem would be unlike any other. Instead of setting the traditional Catholic, Latin text used by Mozart Berlioz, and countless others, Brahms created his own highly personal version from excerpts of the Lutheran Bible and apocrypha. In the first movement, theres a big A and a coda. [All listings below are in the format of: conductor, orchestra, chorus, baritone soloist, soprano soloist (year, source, timing in minutes). 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. "), and then launches into a massive C-major fugue in praise of God as the creator of all. Indeed, Schumann had urged Brahms to "direct his magic wand where the massed forces of chorus and orchestra may lend him their power." 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. 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. Brahms had long carried the idea of writing a requiem. 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. 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. He says it was no accident Shaw was drawn to the Requiem. All is there even the climaxes are not slighted but rather controlled and integrated through the sheer care and consistency of the performance, heard through the prism of Celibidache's distinctive outlook. 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. It was important for us to make things as easy as possible, because he could be extremely hard on himself. WebThis page lists all sheet music of Ein Deutsches Requiem, Op. April 10, 1868. While conductors views often evolve over time, at first it seems hard to reconcile such radically different perspectives arising within a mere six years. The Cologne Radio Choirs German is remarkably clear, but they still offer an appealingly old-fashioned sound, smoothly eliding between notes and avoiding all sharp edges. At the time of World War II, Shaw was a New York playboy, according to Frink, and his brother was a military chaplain. For Shaw, rehearsal time was precious. 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. The fifth movement is that ravishing soprano solo intoning a mother's comfort. The recording quality is decent and the only trace of the rapt audience is their light stirring between movements. 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. 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. 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. 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. So he would prepare obsessively, anticipating issues with balance, pitch, and rhythm, and so on. The Brahms Requiem: Questions for the Conductor Along with questions about his musical and textual motivation, Brahms left several other issues to puzzle Brahms crafted the structure of his German Requiem to bolster the impact of the disparate textual sources he had assembled. Take, for example, the opening phrase, "Selig sind." In the second 1 in C minor, by Johannes Brahms. 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. The second movement combines thoughts of mortality ("All flesh is as grass"), patience, the permanence of God and the joy of redemption. 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?. 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. WebAn analysis and overview of Johannes Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem. Either people insist upon regarding him as the legitimate successor to Beethoven or they deny him the position of a great master altogether." As might be expected, the choral singing is rich and natural, with confident pacing. 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. He adds that Celibidache was inspired by his Zen belief system and by the philosophy of Plotinus, for whom the highest aspiration was a state of profound passivity, in which inner perception transcends logic and rational knowledge.
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