A German Requiem

Composition and premiere: Brahms completed all but what is now the fifth movement of Ein deutsches Requiem in August 1866. Johannes Herbeck conducted the first three movements on December 1, 1867, in Vienna. The first performance of the six then-existing movements was given on Good Friday of 1868 in the Bremen cathedral; Brahms conducted, with Julius Stockhausen as baritone soloist. Brahms added the fifth movement (“Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit,” which calls for solo soprano) in May 1868, that movement first being sung on September 17 that year in Zurich. The soloist was Ida Suter-Weber, with Friedrich Hegar conducting the Tonhalle Orchestra. The first performance of the complete seven-movement work took place in Leipzig on February 18, 1869; Carl Reinecke conducted the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Chorus, with soloists Emilie Bellingrath-Wagner and Franz Krückl. The first BSO performances of Ein deutsches Requiem were led by Serge Koussevitzky in Boston in March 1926. Robert Shaw led the first Tanglewood performance on August 14, 1948. James Levine led the BSO in the most recent Tanglewood performance on July 25, 2009, featuring soloists Hei-Kyung Hong and Matthias Goerne and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.

When Johannes Brahms produced his most ambitious and heartfelt works, he was apt to be the most flippant and dismissive in talking about them. In April 1865 he sent Clara Schumann a draft toward a new piece, observing, “It’s probably the least offensive part of some kind of German Requiem. But since it may have vanished into thin air before you come to Baden, at least have a look at the beautiful words it begins with.” The chorus he is impugning, “How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts,” of course did not vanish from Ein deutsches Requiem. In fact, it is one of the most limpidly beautiful and beloved works in the entire choral repertoire.

In later years Brahms said, “I don’t like to hear that I wrote the Requiem for my mother.” By the law of Brahmsian obliqueness, that is a tacit admission that the death of his beloved mother in 1865 was part of the inspiration. He just didn’t like people talking about it. In a letter of 1873 he is forthright about the other half of its inspiration; after the collapse of a performance proposed for a Robert Schumann memorial, he insists “how completely and inevitably such a work as the Requiem belonged to Schumann.”

So Ein deutsches Requiem had piercing personal associations for Brahms: the loss of his mother Christiane, and of Robert Schumann, his mentor and spiritual father. The inception of the work dates from the traumatic episode of May 1854: soon after proclaiming Brahms the coming genius of German music, Schumann plunged into the Rhine in an attempt at suicide. Within days, Brahms had sketched three movements of a two-piano sonata, which he later tried to turn into a symphony. The first movement of those unfinished works became the tumultuous first movement of the Piano Concerto in D minor. The original second movement, a kind of death march in triple time, eventually became the second movement of the Requiem: “For all flesh, it is as grass.” The premiere of what was intended as the complete work took place in Bremen Cathedral on Good Friday, 1868. Afterward, on the advice of his old Hamburg teacher Eduard Marxsen, Brahms added the soprano solo as fifth movement.

It is characteristic of Brahms to have created a memorial for two revered people as a sacred work (a conventional thing to do), to base the work on precedents in religious music (likewise conventional), yet to write a piece remarkably unlike any other. Ein deutsches Requiem is neither a Mass nor quite an oratorio. The title “Ein deutsches Requiem” gives us the first clue to the work’s singularity. This is “a” requiem, a personal memorial for the dead rather than “the” familiar Catholic one. Beyond that, the work is so spiritual and so Protestant in tone that few listeners notice a strange omission in the text: it never mentions the eponymous founder of the Christian religion. The composer wrote, “I confess that I would gladly omit even the word ‘German’ and instead use ‘Human.’” If Brahms was a North German Protestant by upbringing and temperament, he was also a skeptic and agnostic—in the terms of our day, a “secular humanist.”

Brahms wrote his Requiem not as an address to the dead but to comfort the living.

“Selig,” “blessed,” begins Ein deutsches Requiem [“Blessed are they”]. At the end of its journey the music comes to rest on the word “selig.” The first blessing is for the living, the last for those who are gone, who rest from their labors. These first words foreshadow the purpose of the Requiem, and its progression from darkness to light.

The second movement [“For all flesh, it is as grass”] is an evocation of death that ends in joy. It begins as a heavy and mournful dance of death as it had been when Brahms first sketched it in the days after Robert Schumann’s plunge into the Rhine. A contrasting peaceful section is overtaken by a funeral march, building to a kind of all-consuming anguish before the radiant answer.

In the third movement [“Lord, make me to know”] the word “I” first appears, the text a picture of despair that will be answered by certainty. Yet this movement ends again in joy and consolation.

Next an interlude in the form of an artless, sublime folk song on the image of the heavenly home, repeating over and over, “How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts.” In the fifth movement [“Ye now have sorrow”] the solo soprano’s central words evoke the assurance of hope and the memory of Christiane Brahms: “I will comfort you as one whom his mother comforts.”

The sixth movement brings dark colors and old/new harmonies to the hope of rebirth: “Now we have here no dwelling place but seek the one to come.” In this image of resurrection Brahms put in the last trumpet but left out the terror of last judgement. The movement ends with a grand fugue on Handelian verses. This movement is the climax of the Requiem, ending with Handelian kettledrums.

The music of the finale [“Blessed are the dead”] is full and rich but not showy, with the same lyrical sweetness, the same limpid austerity that the Requiem possesses from its beginning. “Blessed are they that mourn,” Brahms’s Requiem begins. It ends, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, said the Spirit, they rest from their labors.” With a radiant gentleness the music dies away on its opening word, “selig,” “blessed”—the dead blessed not in Paradise but in the hearts of the living.

JAN SWAFFORD

Jan Swafford is a prizewinning composer and writer whose most recent book, published in December 2020, is Mozart: The Reign of Love. His other acclaimed books include Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph, Johannes Brahms: A Biography, The Vintage Guide to Classical Music, and Language of the Spirit: An Introduction to Classical Music. He is an alumnus of the Tanglewood Music Center, where he studied composition.

Johannes Brahms
“Ein deutsches Requiem” (“A German Requiem”), Opus 45

(A note on the text and translation: Brahms, perhaps working from memory, sometimes departed in certain details from Martin Luther’s words; the text is given here as he set it. Occasionally the German and English translations of the Bible diverge, and in a few places where it is useful for the understanding of Brahms’s music, we depart from the Authorized Version in order to give a closer rendering of the text Brahms had before him.)

Selig sind, die da Leid tragen, Blessed are they that mourn:

denn sie sollen getröstet werden. for they shall be comforted.

Matthew 5:4

Die mit Tränen säen, werden mit They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.

Freuden ernten. Sie gehen hin und They go forth and weep, bearing

weinen und tragen edlen Samen und precious seed, and shall doubtless come

kommen mit Freuden und bringen again with rejoicing, bringing their

ihre Garben. sheaves with them.

Psalm 126:5-6

Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras und For all flesh is as grass, and all

alle Herrlichkeit des Menschen wie des the glory of man as the flowers of

Grases Blumen. Das Gras ist verdorret grass. The grass withereth, and the

und die Blume abgefallen. flower thereof falleth away.

I Peter 1:24

So seid nun geduldig, lieben Brüder, bis Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto

auf die Zukunft des Herrn. Siehe, ein the coming of the Lord. Behold, the

Ackermann wartet auf die köstliche husbandman waiteth for the precious

Frucht der Erde und ist geduldig darüber, fruit of the earth, and hath long

bis er empfahe den Morgenregen und patience for it, until he receive the

Abendregen. early and latter rain.

James 5:7

Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras und For all flesh is as grass, and all

alle Herrlichkeit des Menschen wie des the glory of man as the flower of

Grases Blumen. Das Gras ist verdorret grass. The grass withereth, and the

und die Blume abgefallen. flower thereof falleth away.

Aber des Herrn Wort bleibet in But the word of the Lord endureth for

Ewigkeit. ever.

I Peter 1:24-25

Die Erlöseten des Herrn werden wieder And the ransomed of the Lord shall

kommen und gen Zion kommen mit return, and come to Zion with songs

Jauchzen; ewige Freude wird über ihrem and everlasting joy upon their heads:

Haupte sein; Freude und Wonne werden they shall obtain joy and gladness,

sie ergreifen, und Schmerz und Seufzen and sorrow and sighing shall be made

wird weg müssen. to flee.

Isaiah 35:10

Herr, lehre doch mich, dass ein Ende mit Lord, make me to know that there must

mir haben muss, und mein Leben ein be an end of me, that my life has a term,

Ziel hat und ich davon muss. and that I must hence.

Siehe, meine Tage sind einer Hand breit Behold, thou hast made my days as a

vor dir, und mein Leben ist wie nichts handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing

vor dir. Ach, wie gar nichts sind alle before thee: verily, every man at his

Menschen, die doch so sicher leben! best state is altogether vanity.

Sie gehen daher wie ein Schemen und Surely every man walketh in a vain

machen ihnen viel vergebliche Unruhe; shew: surely they are disquieted in

sie sammeln, und wissen nicht, wer es vain: he heapeth up riches and knoweth

kriegen wird. not who shall gather them.

Nun, Herr, wes soll ich mich trösten? And now, Lord, what is my hope?

Ich hoffe auf dich. My hope is in thee.

Psalm 39:4-7

Der Gerechten Seelen sind in Gottes The souls of the righteous are in the

Hand, und keine Qual rühret sie an. hands of God, and there shall no

torment touch them.

Wisdom of Solomon 3:1

Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen, How amiable are thy tabernacles, O

Herr Zebaoth! Lord of hosts!

Meine Seele verlanget und sehnet sich My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for

nach den Vorhöfen des Herrn; mein the courts of the Lord: my heart and my

Leib und Seele freuen sich in dem flesh rejoice in the living God.

lebendigen Gott.

Wohl denen, die in deinem Hause Blessed are they that dwell in thy house:

wohnen; die loben dich immerdar. they will still be praising thee.

Psalm 84:1-2,4

Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit; aber ich will Ye now have sorrow: but I will see you

euch wieder sehen, und euer Herz soll again, and your heart shall rejoice,

sich freuen, und eure Freude soll and your joy no man taketh from you.

niemand von euch nehmen.

John 16:22

Ich will euch trösten, wie einen seine I will comfort you as one whom his

Mutter tröstet. mother comforteth.

Isaiah 66:13

Sehet mich an: ich habe eine kleine Zeit Behold with your eyes: a little while I

Mühe und Arbeit gehabt und habe have had tribulation and labour, and

grossen Trost funden. have found great comfort.

Ecclesiasticus 51:35

Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende For here we have no continuing city,

Statt, sondern die zukünftige suchen wir. but we seek one to come.

Hebrews 13:14

Siehe, ich sage euch ein Geheimnis: Behold I shew you a mystery:

Wir werden nicht alle entschlafen, wir We shall not all sleep, but we shall

werden aber alle verwandelt werden; all be changed,

und dasselbige plötzlich, in einem in a moment, in the twinkling

Augenblick, zu der Zeit der letzten Posaune. of an eye, at the last trump:

Denn es wird die Posaune schallen, und for the trumpet shall sound, and

die Toten werden auferstehen unver- the dead shall be raised incorruptible,

weislich, und wir werden verwandelt and we shall be changed.

werden.

Dann wird erfüllet werden das Wort, Then shall be brought to pass, the

dass geschrieben steht: saying that is written:

“Der Tod ist verschlungen in den Sieg. Death is swallowed up in victory.

Tod, wo ist dein Stachel? O death, where is thy sting?

Hölle, wo ist dein Sieg?” O grave, where is thy victory?

I Corinthians 15:51-52, 54-55

Herr, du bist würdig, zu nehmen Preis Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive

und Ehre und Kraft, denn du hast alle glory and honour and power: for thou

Dinge geschaffen, und durch deinen hast created all things, and for thy

Willen haben sie das Wesen und sind pleasure they are and were created.

geschaffen.

Revelation 4:11

Selig sind die Toten, die in dem Herrn Blessed are the dead which die in the

sterben, von nun an. Ja, der Geist spricht, Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the

dass sie ruhen von ihrer Arbeit; denn Spirit, that they may rest from their

ihre Werke folgen ihnen nach. labours; and their works do follow them.

Revelation 14:13