Before conquering the concert halls with his symphonies and concertos, JOHANNES BRAMS (1833 – 1897) composed mainly in smaller forms – piano pieces, chamber music, songs. He also worked as a choral conductor. He led vocal ensembles in his hometown of Hamburg, in Detmold and in Vienna and enriched the repertoire with his own works. German Requiem, Op. 45 is his most spectacular choral creation, which marked his great artistic breakthrough.
The very title is indicative of Brahms’ different conception from the traditional Missa da requiem (Mass for the Dead). Instead of using the canonical Latin text, he himself made a selection of sacred texts from the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, translated by Martin Luther. He composed the “libretto” of the work from verses in the Gospels of Matthew and John; from the Epistles of the Apostles Peter, Paul, and James; from the books of Isaiah and Jesus the Son of Sirach; from the Wisdom of Solomon and the Revelation of St. John the Theologian; and excerpts from three psalms (125, 38 and 83). The choice of these stirring stanzas is not random – it is the canvas of his musical intent: to create a spiritual work for the living, a consolation for those who have lost their loved ones. Brahms has often pointed out that he is not a “Christian” composer. A North German Protestant in upbringing and spirit, he was a moderate agnostic and a prominent humanist. Regarding the title German Requiem, he noted, “I confess that I would gladly have omitted the word ‘German’ and used ‘Human’ instead.‘
The first drafts of the work are tinged with his personal human grief. They arose after the tragic incident of his spiritual mentor and friend Robert Schumann, who attempted suicide in the waters of the Rhine in May 1854. Overwhelmed, Brahms sketched three movements of a sonata for two pianos within a few days, which he later attempted to turn into a symphony. The first movement of this unfinished symphony became Movement I of the Piano Concerto in D Minor, and the second movement, a kind of danse macabre (dance of Death) he would later transform into Movement II of the German Requiem. After Schumann’s death in 1856, the idea of a Requiem began to take shape. The impetus to write the work came in 1865, after the death of his beloved mother, which filled him with immense grief.
Brahms conceived his composition in six movements and centred it around philosophical matters of the fleeting and vain life, of man’s redemption, of change – from density to densitylessness, of trust in the creative power of the Creator. While completing the score, he repeatedly reworks the music. The partial premiere of the first three movements of the Requiem was in Vienna on 1 December 1867. Hastily prepared, it was not well received by the audience, and at the finale the timpani boomed so loudly that they drowned out all the performers…
But the composer, without losing courage, continued to work on the German Requiem. The 6-movement work was premiered on Good Friday, 10 April 1868, at the Bremen Cathedral. The choir was prepared by Karl Reintahlen, Julius Stockhausen as the baritone soloist. Brahms conducted himself, supported by the presence of his closest friends, Clara Schumann, Joseph Joachim, Albert Dietrich and his father. The work captivated everyone and was a great success for the composer! On the advice of his old teacher from Hamburg, Eduard Marxen, he added another movement with a soprano solo, which became the fifth movement of the Requiem. It was performed independently at a private concert in Zurich on September 17th, by Ida Suter-Weber, the Tonhalle Choir and Orchestra conducted by Friedrich Hegar.
The first performance of the complete 7-movement version was in Leipzig on 18 April 1869 with the Gewandhaus Choir and Orchestra conducted by Carl Reinecke, and soloists Emilie Bellingrath-Wagner and Franz Krückl. This work made Brahms, at the age of 36, a European celebrity! The authoritative Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick wrote: Since Beethoven’s Bach Mass in B minor and Missa Solemnis, nothing has been composed in this field that can compare to Brahms’ German Requiem!.
The composition is constructed in a slender and balanced form, and the means of expression are marked by the artist’s subtle connection with the old masters of polyphony (culminating in the skillful four-voice fugues in the third and sixth movements). The first movement (Blessed are those who weep, for they shall be comforted ) and the seventh (Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord) are figuratively close and frame the theme of consolation. Brahms draws a gigantic arch between the second and sixth movements, a dramatic meditation on the imperishability of the spirit and resurrection. The anxious dialogues between baritone soloist and chorus in the third movement (Tell me, Lord, my end and what is the number of my days) soar in joyful hope of the Lord’s mercy. The lyrical centre of the Requiem is the middle movements. The choral softness of the fourth (How dear are thy dwellings, O Lord of hosts) recalls the illuminating final choruses of Bach’s Passions. The solo soprano in the fifth movement is the beautiful embodiment of God’s boundless love (As one is comforted by his mother, so will I comfort you). We will not find the dreaded expectation of retribution on the day of God’s judgment in the German Requiem, nor the prayers of repentance. Brahms’s music astonishingly transforms the gloomy bleakness of grief into a reassuring light.