RO NOW: Ein deutsches Requiem

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)
Ein deutsches Requiem, op. 45 (1865-1868) 

• Selig sind, die da Leid tragen (Ziemlich langsam und mit Ausdruck) 

• Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras (Langsam, marschmäßig) 

• Herr, lehre doch mich (Andante moderato) 

• Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen (Mäßig bewegt) 

• Ihr habt nur Traurigkeit (Langsam) 

• Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt (Andante) 

• Selig sind die Toten (Feierlich) 

End of concert approximately 10:15 p.m. 

There will be filming in the Foyer before the concert.

Beloved mother 

In 1856 Johannes Brahms, still only 23 years old, faced death hard. He had befriended the Schumann family living in Düsseldorf and experienced at close quarters Robert Schumann's madness and tragic death in an asylum. It gave Brahms the idea of composing a tribute, not according to the traditional requiem, but a collection of biblical texts about the transience of life and comfort for the bereaved. For the time being it did not materialize but in 1861 he conceived it again. First he selected texts from the German translation of the Bible. He also composed some parts, but then put it aside again. A new impulse came in 1865 with the death of his mother, to whom he had been very fond. Seeking solace in music, Brahms picked up his Deutsches Requiem again and completed it in the following two years. After its successful premiere in Bremen in 1868, Brahms added an additional movement, giving the work its final completion. 

Comfort for fellow man 

Although Brahms had received a religious upbringing in the Lutheran tradition, faith had lost much of its meaning for him over the years. He relied much more on the valuable things he looked for in his fellow man than he took from Biblical dogma. This is readily apparent in the choice of text in Ein deutsches Requiem . It is not about divine providence in the hour of death, but much more about the human approach to the finiteness of life and the comfort that bereaved families can offer each other. Consolation is therefore one of the key concepts of the composition that is central to the first and seventh, Last movements. Parts two and six contrast the temporality of the earthly and the eternity of the heavenly. Another step inward, parts three and five contrast each other. In part three man laments his mortality, but in part five it is the confidence in comfort that makes mortality acceptable. It brings us to part four, the heart of the play. This is about the "lovely dwellings" - whatever that might be exactly - in which man's departed soul can find its rest. And that was the essence for the humanist Brahms to accept the brevity of human life. 

Kees Wisse