Brahms: EIN DEUTSCHES REQUIEM
Brahms: TRAGIC OVERTURE IN D MINOR
Program notes

Johannes Brahms (born: Hamburg, May 7, 1833; died: Vienna, April 3, 1897)

     The son of an itinerant musician who settled in Hamburg, Johannes Brahms first studied music with his father and by seven began formal training. To supplement the family’s meager income, he started performing in his teens; at fourteen, a performance included one of his own piano compositions. As an adult Brahms claimed that he played in the city’s brothels, but this may have been an exaggeration on his part. In 1853, he went on tour with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi who introduced him to fellow violinist Joseph Joachim (who became a lifelong friend). Through Joachim, Brahms was introduced to Liszt and to Schumann who was particularly impressed by Brahms and praised the young man in an article called “New Paths.” Schumann was institutionalized less than a year later and died in 1856, but by this time Brahms had begun his famous association with Clara Schumann.
     Within a few years Brahms’ reputation as a composer and pianist had grown, although it was a far from universal acceptance. Brahms wrote to Joachim of one premiere: “At the conclusion three pairs of hands were brought together very slowly, whereupon a perfectly distinct hissings from all sides forbade any such demonstration.” Hisses also greeted the 1866 premiere of the first three movements of his requiem.
     Unlike the traditional Requiem, a prayer for the dead, Ein Deutsches Requiem speaks to the mourners, comforting them and reminding them that the inevitability of death makes it a part of life. At least two movements can be linked to Brahms’ personal losses. The second movement is based on sketches he had worked on during the final illness of his mentor, Robert Schumann. The extraordinarily tender fifth movement, the last to be added after a series of “premieres,” was most likely inspired by the death of his mother. Bypassing the traditional prayers for the dead, Brahms selected his text from the Old and New Testaments of the German Lutheran Bible. In so doing, he expressed his own feelings toward death, which were not governed by a formal sense of religion. Ein Deutsches Requiem focuses on the needs of the living—Brahms had considered calling it a “human” requiem—on the brevity of life and the expectation of “evige Freude,” eternal joy. Through his music, Brahms wove the Biblical passages together in a tapestry of grief and hope that is simultaneously personal and universal in its scope.
     In its final form, Ein Deutsches Requiem premiered in Cologne on February 16, 1869. Eight years later, the Oratorio Society of New York presented the first U.S. performance in Steinway Hall on March 15, 1877. It is a tribute to the creative genius to the Society’s founder, Leopold Damrosch, that the Society undertook this premiere—its first—during its fourth season. Damrosch was an inner-circle advocate of New German Music—Liszt and Wagner both served as godfathers to Damrosch children—and considered it his mission to introduce this music to America. Brahms, on the other hand, was so unmoved by Liszt’s music that when they first met, he fell asleep while Liszt played his recently composed Sonata in B minor. Nevertheless, Damrosch gambled on this controversial new work, hedging his bet by pairing it with a Bach cantata and an excerpt from Gluck’s Orpheo. The controversies ranged from its lack of an obvious Christian message to its presumption, in a newly unified Germany, of German nationalism without homage to New German Music. The New York Times review stated, “it is exceedingly scholarly, but its length and monotonousness are such that it is scarcely likely to impress any but students." But Damrosch was right and Brahms’ critics were wrong. Ein Deutsches Requiem has become one of the most beloved choral masterpieces.
     Brahms never secured a patron or a prestigious position. Over time he settled into the life of an eccentric bachelor who liked tin soldiers and lived in an unkempt apartment in Vienna. He spent his summers in resort towns where he did most of his composing. In 1879 he accepted an honorary doctorate from the University of Breslau (coincidentally, Leopold Damrosch’s adult hometown before his move to New York). To show his appreciation he composed the Academic Festival Overture, a lighthearted compilation of student songs, while vacationing in Bad Ischl in the summer of 1880. As a counterbalance, he also composed the Tragic Overture. Brahms wrote to a friend, “Having composed this jolly Academic Festival Overture, I could not refuse my melancholy nature the satisfaction of composing an overture for a tragedy.” He saw the two works as the opposing faces of a dramatic mask, describing them as, "one weeps, the other laughs." Much has been made of which particular tragedy—his own or literary—Brahms had in mind for this piece. Quite likely, it was nothing in particular. Early on, he considered calling it Dramatic Overture, and wrote that he settled on “Tragic” because no one could come up with anything better. In its philosophy, the Tragic Overture mirrors Ein Deutsches Requiem. Tragedy and comedy are part of the same mask; life and death are part of the same journey. Paired together tonight, they present a grandeur of emotion such as only Brahms could create.
     Marie Gangemi

Johannes Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem

Selig sind die da Leid tragen
Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted. (Matthew 5:4)
Who sows with tears will reap with joy. Who goes forth weeping, but bearing precious
   seed, comes rejoicing, bringing in the sheaves. (Psalms 126:5-6)

Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras
For all flesh is as the grass, and human glory as the grass's flower. Grass withers, and
   flowers fall away. (1 Peter 1:24 from Isaiah 40:6-7)
Be patient, beloved brethern, until the coming of the Lord. Behold, the farmer tends the
   delicious fruits of the earth, patiently awaiting the morning and evening rains. (James 5:7)
But the word of the Lord endures forever. (1 Peter 1:25)
Those whom the Lord delivers will return and will enter Zion shouting with joy. Eternal joy
   will be upon them. They will know joy and delight. Pain and sighing will disappear. 
   (Isaiah 35:10)

Herr, lehre doch mich
Lord, make me to know my end and the measure of my days, that my life may have a
   purpose. Behold, you have made my days a handsbreadth, and my lifetime is nothing
   before you. A phanthom only, we go our ways. Our restless pursuits are like a vapor. We
   heap up stores and know not who will use them. And now, Lord, for what do I await? My
   hope is in you. (Psalms 39:4-7)
The just reside in the hand of God, and no torment will reach them. (Wisdom 3:1)

Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen
How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts. My soul longs and yearns for the
   courtyard of the Lord. My body and soul rejoice in the living God. Happy are they who dwell
   in your house. They praise you without end. (Psalms 84:1-2, 4)

Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit
You are sorrowful now, but I will see you again, and your heart will rejoice, and no one will
   take your joy from you. (John 26:22)
I will comfort you the way your mother comforted you. (Isaiah 66:13)
See for yourselves. I have spent a little time in trouble and labor and have found much
   comfort. (Ecclesiastes 51:27)

Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt
Here we have no permanent homeland, but we search for the one that is to come.
   (Hebrews 13:14)
Behold, I will tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed. In a
   moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the
   dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. Then will be fulfilled the
   prophecy that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. Death, where is your sting?
   Hell, where is your victory? (1 Corinthians 15:51-52, 54-55)
Lord, you are worthy to receive riches and honor and power, for you have created all things,
and by your will, they exist and were created. (Revelation 4:11)