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Program notes - Brahms' Requiem |
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A Note from the Artistic Director
The word “German” in the title of Brahms’ German Requiem is not so much about its language as it is a statement of function. He wished to say that it was not a “Roman” Requiem (i.e. for the Roman Catholic liturgy) but a “Personal” or “Layman’s” Requiem of someone who is German. Indeed, the texts he chose were not at all about the transmigration of the soul, but about mortality in general, and directed more to those dealing with grief and sorrow and doubt – that is, those in need of assurance – than to the dead themselves. Indeed, the opening words are “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” This is not about the deceased, but about the bereaved. And it sums up the thrust of the entire work on its very first page. Brahms’ choice of texts also makes clear that it is, much like the motet Warum, a picture into the soul of someone as he or she wrestles with the idea of mortality. Jesus, or any concept of the Christ or Messiah, is not mentioned, nor is any specific doctrine of the afterlife. Brahms believed, as I do, that much can be gleaned about eternal truths and transcendent meaning through the artistic experience – maybe even more than through orthodoxy of one particular kind or another. It is therefore interesting to note that the most frequently appearing words of any significance in the piece are “trösten” (to comfort) and “Freude” (joy), not “death” or “sorrow.” I would like to offer here a personal listening guide for any who are interested, to follow along with and meditate on as the work progresses, and giving insight into my particular interpretation of the work. My translation from the German in these notes may differ slightly from what is printed below, but the sense of the citations should be apparent. Very likely, many of you are quite familiar with this work in its orchestral form, and your ear will naturally be attuned initially to differences between it and the 4-hand piano version heard tonight. Yet I do not want this to be a mere academic or even aesthetic comparison of the two versions, but to be an emotionally intense experience for the sake of its artistic and spiritual content; and it is to this end that I offer these comments. The first movement, as mentioned above, is addressed directly to the bereaved. It is slow-moving and quietly assured. The fact that it is in a major key immediately tells us that we are not about to experience an unremittingly somber depiction of death. Listen for the word-painting on the word “weinen” (to cry), as the harmonies and the contour of the melody suggest the pain of the lamenting heart. This movement tells us that the Requiem as a whole is addressed to the living, especially to the living who have experienced a great loss. The second movement reminds us of our own mortality, and is like a funeral dirge or death march, first quiet and solemn, then loud and terrible. The B-section lightens the atmosphere a little, advising us to be patient like the farmer who waits for the fruit to ripen. The grim death-march returns almost verbatim, and the movement ends with a glorious fugue on the words “Those who have been redeemed will return to Zion with shouts, and with joy – eternal joy”—he builds gloriously on repeated uses of the word “Freude” (joy). Notice the effective use of word-painting on the word “Schmerz” (pain) and that it must go away (“wird weg”). The movement dwindles gently on the words “ewige Freude” (eternal joy), now not triumphant, but like the soft contented afterglow from intense elation. The third movement introduces a baritone soloist, who personally bids God to teach him that his life is short, which he repeats with chorus in several apt ways. At the fourth entrance of the solo voice, he asks “Nun Herr, wes soll ich mich trösten” (How Lord, therefore, shall I comfort myself?). The chorus takes up this question in a very disjointed fugue – so disjointed that the listener is probably not even aware that it is a fugue. Then with calm assurance, the answer comes – “Ich hoffe auf dich” (My hope is in you). A final fugue begins on the confident words “The righteous are in the hand of God, where no torment shall touch them.” The fourth movement is the shortest and gentlest, musing on the beauty of God’s dwelling-place, and our yearning to be there. Note that the opening descending motive in the piano is an exact inversion of the first soprano line – like God reaching down to us in thought, and man reaching back up in thanksgiving. The tempo Brahms uses is “Maßig bewegt” (With measured motion). The transparency of texture provided by this chamber arrangement allows me to take this movement faster than I’ve ever heard it, almost like a waltz. I like to think this is a comment on Brahms’ love of his adopted home of Vienna, and the gemütlichkeit of heaven. The fifth movement was inserted into the work a couple years after its first performance, occasioned by the death of Brahms’ mother. This fact never fails to bring a tear to my eye as I listen to it, being such a personally stated farewell to a loved one. The soprano soloist, clearly a symbol of his mother, says “You now have sadness, but I will see you again,” and the choir – featuring the tenors especially (was Brahms a tenor? I wouldn’t doubt it, judging from this movement) – repeats her message sotto voce. It is a sign of Brahms’ deep knowledge and veneration of the German Baroque masters that he employs a technique here known as augmentation/diminution: The soprano soloist sings “Ich will euch trösten” (I will comfort you) to a melody that the choir also simultaneously sings, but twice as slowly. It is almost as if the turgidity of terrestrial life forces the choir – symbolic here of Brahms or the collective “us” – to ape the heavenly melody at half its intended speed because of our limited ability to understand the eternal truths of life. We can hear it sung to us with the angelic beauty of a solo soprano, but can only reproduce it ourselves at a much decreased degree of perfection. The sixth movement is the climax of the work in terms of sheer power, and is probably consciously so placed to conform to the idea of the Golden Mean (especially when one considers that the 5th movement was added later, and therefore did not figure into his calculations in the original conception of the work), a concept which was beloved of Bach, and therefore also of Brahms by adulation. This movement brings back the baritone soloist, and the German Requiem comes the closest to addressing what death and the transmigration of the soul might be like. The choir sings that we have no abiding place here – that all is temporary – and the soloist, in a trembling, almost foreboding tone, says that we will all be transformed, changed in the twinkling of an eye. The choir takes it up in a terrifying yet exhilarating depiction of the “last trumpet” calling the souls of the dead to something new. Continuing his role as a narrator of this apocalyptic scene, the soloist says “Then shall be brought to pass the saying …” And the choir sings, to the same music as the “last trumpet” section, “Death is swallowed up in victory. Death, where is your sting? Grave, where is your victory?” The movement – indeed, the entire work – could have ended here on the word “Sieg” (victory) – but Brahms adds one of the greatest fugues ever written, on the words “Herr, du bist würdig” (Lord, you are worthy), the text from the book of Revelation. Of particular joy to me in two spots is the upward soaring and spiraling series of notes (sung to the words “zu nehmen Preis und Ehre” [to receive glory and honor]) from the very lowest registers of the piano, taken up by the choir in the middle, basses handing off to tenors, tenors to altos, and altos to sopranos, and finishing up at the very top of the piano. A greater sense of being gathered up in glory and bliss has never been written, as far as I’m concerned. One could make a statement that this fugue perhaps also symbolizes Brahms’ affirmation of God and religion as important aspects of our acceptance of our own mortality – that they make it bearable in some significant way. The agnosticism one senses in so much of Brahms’ works – his “disappointed theism,” in words used to describe Vaughan Williams – is here for a moment in full abeyance. The seventh and final movement was, for many years of my life, something of a disappointment. But that was before I had achieved what I like to think was enough maturity to appreciate it. The text is as close as the Requiem approaches to a sectarian statement, referring to those who “die in the Lord.” This text is not a surprising one, however, and has been part of many burial services (including the Anglican, where it is sung at the grave) for centuries. What has allowed me to warm to this movement’s place in the Requiem is its parallelism to the opening movement, yet its subtle differences. Its opening tempo marking is “Feierlich” (‘Ceremonial’, or ‘Celebratory’ in a ritualistic sense), which leaves great latitude for interpretation to the conductor. The opening melody, first sung by the sopranos and next by the tenors, is stable and unwavering as the accompaniment pulses and drives beneath it, communicating that the six foregoing movements and their metaphorical wrestling with issues has left Brahms with a solid conviction that, despite sorrow and loss, all is well and all manner of things shall be well. There is almost a sense, especially in the accompaniment, of an impatience to “get on with things” due to this new-found conviction. The obvious textual allusion is not to be downplayed – in the beginning it was “Blessed are they who mourn,” and now it is “Blessed are the dead.” The affirmation of death here is, in fact, an affirmation of life. The movement takes various wonderful twists and turns, including a haunting moment on “Der Geist spricht” (the Spirit says), and ends identically to the opening movement, with only the substitution of the new words. Many performances, in order to complete the circuit, and to make clear the allusion to the opening movement, slow down on the last few pages to match the tempo of the opening movement. Brahms does not indicate such a slowing, and I have consciously decided to retain the modestly faster tempo established at the beginning of the seventh movement, thus giving an added lightness, an added sense of quiet joy and peace, to the conclusion of the work. Hence, we hear the identical notes and rhythms as at the end of the first movement, but here there is a sense not off loss, but of acceptance, and even
serenity. © 2010 Timothy J. Krueger
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