Orpheus Choir of Wellington: Brahms Requiem

The Orpheus Choir of Wellington and Orchestra Wellington had attempted to present the concert in 2021, but COVID derailed the plans, and it was postponed into September of 2022.  The timing became very significant as Queen Elisabeth passed away only days before. The concert was dedicated to her memory.

The concert opened with the first of four rarely performed songs for Women’s choir, horn, and harp: Es tönt ein voller Harfenklang - The rich sound of a harp rings out. The song, with poetry by Friedrich Ruperti, speaks of the tones of the harp increasing love and longing in the heart, only to cause tears to flow at the loss of love and happiness sinking into the grave.

For individual movements, see audio below

In 1865, Brahms was sent a telegram from his brother, Fritz that read “If you want  to see our mother once again, come immediately.  Christiane Brahms, at the age of 76 had had stroke.  Brahms immediately traveled from Vienna to Hamburg, but it was too late, she had already passed.  He was thirty two.

His mother’s death was clearly the trigger, but the idea of a musical memorial had been with him since the death of his friend and mentor Robert Schumann nine years earlier.  Schumann had declared him the heir to Beethoven, but was burdened by the weight of that statement and struggled to find a way to live up it in music.

But with the idea of a requiem firmly in his head, he began work months after his mother’s death and by the end of 1865, the majority of the work was complete.  But by the first performance, it was clear this was no liturgical requiem.  Instead of the traditional Roman Catholic liturgy with its prayers to grant grace and save the deceased from the threat of hell, Brahms had personally selected and edited texts from scripture and apocrypha to give comfort to those left behind…the living.

In the work’s first performance, the absence of scripture, and specifically any reference to Jesus Christ, concerned the laity of the Bremen Cathedral, so music by Handel was inserted in the middle of the performance, with the famous soprano aria from the Messiah ‘I know my Redeemer Liveth’.  

It was after that performance that Brahms added the most poignant tribute to his mother in the form of the fifth movement featuring a soprano soloist singing ‘You now have sadness, I will comfort you’, while the choir sings of being comforted as though by a mother.

The whole work is structured as an arch form, the beginning movement blesses those who mourn, the final movement blesses the departed, and we hear the same music ending both movements.  The second and sixth movements reflect on the pain of life on earth being transformed to joy by faith.  The fourth movement, ‘How lovely is thy dwelling place’,  is most often heard outside of the requiem.

It was after the first complete performance of the German Requiem that the prophecy of Brahms as heir to Beethoven began to be fulfilled, his fame growing through Austria, then Germany and abroad.  Brahms would complete an arrangement of the work for two pianos, there is a version for choir and organ, and a setting for chamber orchestra by Joachim Linckelmann which is the edition used in this performance.

In this performance of Brahms’ German Requiem, the Orpheus Choir are joined by soprano Madeleine Pierard and baritone Robert Tucker with Orchestra Wellington all conducted by music director Brent Stewart at Wellington’s Michael Fowler Centre.

Brahms: Ein Deutsche Requiem, individual movements

Matthew 5:4  Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Psalm 126:5–6  They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.
They that go forth and weep, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing their sheaves with them.

1 Peter 1:24  For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower thereof falleth away.
James 5:7  Be patient therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and has long patience for it, until he receive the morning and evening rain.
1 Peter 1:25  But the word of the Lord endureth for ever.
Isaiah 35:10  And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Psalm 39:4–7  Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is: that I may know how frail I am.
Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee.
Surely every man walks in a vain show: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heaps up riches, and knows not who shall gather them.
And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee.
Wisdom of Solomon 3:1  The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God and there shall no torment touch them.

Psalm 84:1.2.4  How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts!
My soul longs, yea, even faints for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh cries out for the living God.
Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will always be praising thee.

John 16:22  And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.
Ecclesiasticus 51:27  Behold with your eyes, how that I have but little labour, and have gotten unto me much rest.
Isaiah 66:13  As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort you.

Hebrews 13:14  For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.
1 Corinthians 15:51–52.54–55  Behold, I show you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?
Revelation 4:11  Thou art worthy, o Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Revelation 14:13  Blessed are the dead, which die in the Lord, from henceforth. Yea, says the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.

 

This concert was recorded and produced for RNZ Concert by David Houston with technical assistance by Sam Smaill.