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A German Requiem / Ein deutsches Requiem
- Johannes Brahms
Arsys Bourgogne Choir
Concerto Köln
Conductor : Pierre Cao
Program
A German Requiem opus 45 - Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)
Description and little background
This was the work which made Brahms a legend in German music.
During Brahms’ lifetime, this work was as huge a success in Europe as is was in New York. The first performance in France took place on the 26th March 1875 under Pasdeloup.
The work’s gestation was long, from 1854 to 1868, when Brahms himself conducted the first performance. The German Requiem is not merely linked to tragic events in the composer’s life (the tragic death of Schumann, that of his mother…). It is above all the expression of his tragic view of the world, of Brahms’ mind and soul, those of a thirty year-old man who had never been young, who wrote: ‘I don’t need to tell you that I never laugh inside’, and whose music is imbued with a deep melancholy.
One notices the importance of the article ‘Ein’ (one, a) reflecting the subjectivity of the work. Suffering Man is the centre of the work. The Catholic requiem’s prayers for the dead (supplication, judgement, repose for the dead man’s soul), are replaced by words of consolation for the living who suffer here, now. In the place of fear of the Last Judgement, of the terror of the Dies irae, Brahms expresses his confidence in divine goodness, his hope of the Resurrection. The traditional minor key gives way to the Major (even the numbers which start in a minor key end up in a Major key), symbolising a peaceful view of death.
Set in German, to biblical texts, with its great nobility of composition, this, Brahms’ masterpiece, is a perfect synthesis of Romanticism and the Lutheran tradition.
The concerts will be given on old instruments of the componist's period.
Duration
About an hour and a quarter
Performers
110 persons:
48 singers
55 orchestra musicians
2 soloists
Conductor Pierre Cao
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