Brahms' 'Requiem' is one for the living
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Johannes Brahms.
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It started out as a memorial for a friend, became a tribute to a mother and ended up a message for humanity.
Johannes Brahms' "A German Requiem" was all of that, and it is one of his most enduring compositions. The death in 1856 of Robert Schumann, the great German composer and close friend, inspired the choral work. Yet it was not until Brahms' mother died in 1865 that he began to work on it in earnest. It had its premiere in 1868 in Leipzig when Brahms was 35 years old.
Manfred Honeck, conductor; Thomas Hampson, baritone; Chen Reiss, soprano; Mendelssohn Choir.
Where: Heinz Hall, Downtown.
When: 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday; 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
Tickets: Start at $20; Pittsburgh Symphony web site
The extended gestation for a composition was not unusual for Brahms, who famously took a decade and a half to finish his First Symphony. And neither was making art out-of-step from his time. His "Requiem" is not a piece for or one modeled after a funeral service, such as Verdi's of 1874. It doesn't use the harrowing "Dies irae" sequence found in funeral masses and in many works both spooky and profound, such as Berlioz's "Symphonie fantastic" or Saint-Saens' "Dance Macabre."
"I hesitate to call it a requiem," says Manfred Honeck, who will conduct the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh and acclaimed singers, baritone Thomas Hampson and soprano Chen Reiss, in a performance this weekend. "It is more an oratorio or trauerkantate; it has the theme of death not the liturgy. Christ is never mentioned."
"A German Requiem" also does not use Latin -- the language of the mass at the time -- but German. That's the reason for the title; it's not meant to be nationalistic, as the composer himself explained: "As regards the text, I must confess that I would gladly leave off the 'German' and replace it simply with 'human'," he wrote in a letter to the conductor of the premiere.
"A German Requiem" is as much humane as it is human. Unlike the Catholic requiem's description of judgment day, calls for mercy and bestowing of a final blessing for the departed, Brahms' has a different agenda.
"This piece is not for the people who died, it is for the people who lived and are sad about the person that died," says Mr. Honeck, PSO music director. The opening sentence: "Blessed are they who mourn; for they shall be comforted" sets the tone for that sentiment.
"There are hopeful elements in it; always a positive feeling," says the conductor. "Therefore the piece has a lack of drama. You won't find the drama of the requiems of Mozart or Verdi."
You will find a deep love expressed for Brahms' mother, says Mr. Honeck. "The fifth movement is the only place that a soprano sings, and I believe it is his mother saying the text, 'You are now sad, but I will see you again and your heart will rejoice.'
"I always ask for a different color here and always use a lyric soprano. In earlier times it was more common to have a heavier soprano [but] she should sound like an angel."
The concert opens with Mr. Hampson singing Dvorak's "Biblical Songs."
First Published February 2, 2012 12:00 am
