Sorrow and comfort

The title arouses curiosity: a German requiem? What could be German about this work? The answer is simple: in it, Johannes Brahms took sixteen passages from the Bible and composed a requiem in the German language.

This set him apart from other composers. A requiem is the mass for the dead in the Catholic liturgy and was traditionally held in Latin, as laid down at the Council of Trent in 1545. Newly composed liturgical church music was expected to follow the established Latin text.

Comfort to the living

Brahms, a Protestant, didn't write a requiem in the conventional sense but a kind of funeral music with texts chosen freely from the Bible as translated by Luther. In contrast to the traditional requiem, it contains no description of the horrors of the Last Judgement ("dies irae"), but instead offers comfort to the living and the bereaved.

This becomes clear in the very first movement: "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy." (Matthew 5:4)

A Masterpiece for Piano-Four-Hands

Johannes Brahms wrote the Requiem following the deaths of both his mother and his friend Robert Schumann.

Brahms also arranged the orchestral score of the Requiem for piano-four-hands, wanting to make it possible to perform the work on a small scale as well. In a letter to Clara Schumann, he wrote with some self-irony: "I have devoted myself to the noble activity of making my immortal work accessible for four-handed souls as well."

He found arranging the piece to be "bitter work," because he didn't want to leave out any of its "many beauties." Clara Schumann answered, "Your arrangement is very beautiful; it is very playable, but still so rich."

In the Stiftskirche in Bonn, Germany's oldest radio chorus, the Berlin Radio Chorus under its conductor Simon Halsey, demonstrated clearly why it received a Grammy for its recording of the Requiem with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The unfamiliar sound of two pianos in place of an orchestra made this choral concert very special.

Program:

Johannes Brahms

A German Requiem op. 45, part 4: "Wie lieblich sind Deine Wohnungen" (How Amiable are Thy Tabernacles)

Performed by:

Philip Moll, piano
Philip Mayers, piano

Berlin Radio Chorus

Conductor: Simon Halsey

Performed on Sept. 26, 2009 in the Stiftskirche Bonn and recorded by Deutsche Welle.

Carla Gehrmann-Zellen/rf/kjb