Blake Beckemeyer, tenor chorister
Michelle Louer, music director
Second Presbyterian Sanctuary Choir
University of Indianapolis Choirs

Johannes Brahms likely had several influences that spurred him to write A German Requiem, which he completed in 1868. After the death of his friend and mentor Robert Schumann in 1856, Brahms considered creating a musical memorial. Yet perhaps a more direct impetus was the death of his own mother in 1865. Indeed, the texts that he excerpted from Luther’s Bible prominently feature the idea of motherly comfort for those who mourn.

Brahms’s use of German Bible verses rather than the standard Latin texts of the Requiem Mass places his work closer to the lineage of Lutheran works by Bach and Schütz than to the Catholic Requiem tradition represented by Mozart and Berlioz. Brahms intentionally avoided texts referring specifically to Christ or redemption after death, instead choosing to focus on the experience of grief, the transience of life, blessings for the dead, and the human desire for comfort and consolation. In this sense, rather than a Mass for the dead, Brahms’s composition is a Requiem for the living who mourn the dead.

While the text of the Requiem Mass prays that God grant rest to the departed, Brahms focuses on the living. The first line of the work, taken from the Gospel according to Matthew, offers comfort to mourners:

Selig sind, die da Leid tragen, denn sie sollen getröstet werden.
Blessed are they that bear grief, for they shall be comforted.

Michelle Louer

In the second movement, ‘Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras’, the sorrow of Brahms’s Requiem comes to the fore. Solo strings intone the funereal march, occasionally releasing into repose and relief. The instrumental ensemble takes on a reflective inwardness, contemplating the transience of life on earth. But according to the text, such transience is redeemed through the everlasting and eternal quality of the Lord. The chorus declares the joy of this realization, exchanging lines between sections in an excited dialogue.

The baritone soloist enters in the third movement, ‘Herr, lehre doch mich’, as the text turns to the individual’s experience of the fragility and uncertainty of life. The chorus both accompanies and responds to the soloist’s pleas as the music wavers ambiguously between D major and D minor. The piano is prominent in the texture, and the movement concludes with the celebrated double fugue over an ‘everlasting’ pedal D. Vocal entrances articulating various tonal centres heighten the tension before resolving to a clear and triumphant D major.

The fourth movement, ‘Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen’, serves as the centrepiece of the Requiem. In this pastoral evocation of the promised comfort, Brahms omits the darkness and sorrow normally associated with the liturgical Requiem. Instead, he allows the earth to serve as a metaphor for the sacred dwelling place, where peace and repose are found.

This fifth movement was added to the Requiem six months after its initial premiere; Brahms’s original conception was for a six-movement work. As the soprano soloist sings ‘Sehet mich an’, asking the Lord for comfort, the solo line soars high above the chorus, calling out for sacred consolation.

Movement six, ‘Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt’, serves as a structural balance to movement three. It is similarly in a ternary form with a baritone solo, and similarly concludes with a fugue. The soloist enters with text from the first epistle to the Corinthians: ‘Siehe, ich sage euch ein Geheimnis’, words also famously set by Handel for the solo bass in Messiah. Brahms artfully modulates from C minor to F sharp minor as the soloist sings ‘Geheimnis’ (‘mystery’), and the second section of the movement contains one of the most striking choral passages of the piece—a fast triple metre with full instrumental forces and the chorus declaiming ‘Denn es wird die Posaune schallen, und die Toten werden auferstehen unverweslich’ (‘For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible’).

The final movement, ‘Selig sind die Toten’, provides both a musical and a textual counterpart to movement one, returning to the F major of the opening for the work’s completion. Here, the blessings previously offered to the living are instead bestowed upon the dead:

Selig sind die Toten, die in dem Herrn sterben, von nun an.
Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, from henceforth.

The movement is in ternary form with a coda derived entirely from the corresponding section in the first movement. The chorus brings the movement to a close with repetitions of the word ‘Selig’ (‘Blessed’)—the same word which began the Requiem—lending the entire work a beautiful symmetry and sense of resolution.

The German Requiem was described by several early critics as overly academic and monotonous in nature. Yet the work’s continued popularity, especially throughout the latter half of the twentieth century, demonstrates that its subject matter, the universal experience of loss, mourning, comfort and peace, still resonates with modern audiences. Brahms composed his German Requiem to convey the spiritual essence of his chosen biblical texts in a way that could serve all of humanity. This is perhaps best understood through Brahms’s own words to his friend and organist of Bremen cathedral (who was leading rehearsals for the first performance): concerning the title ‘A German Requiem’ he wrote ‘As far as the text is concerned, I will confess that I would very gladly omit the “German”, and simply put “of Humankind”.’

Kevin Sherwin & Nola Richardson © 2018