In addition to composing avidly for all combinations of instruments throughout his life, Johannes Brahms produced a considerable range of works for vocal forces. His catalog includes hundreds of lieder published over four decades, to say nothing of several sets of folk-song arrangements. Brahms’s works for unaccompanied and accompanied choirs and small vocal ensembles are legion, showing his perfectionist verve, supreme craftsmanship, and knowledge of choral literature. This aspect extends from his friend Robert Schumann (who once planned a “German Requiem” of his own) back to the Baroque choral works of Johann Sebastian Bach and Heinrich Schütz, composers whose works Brahms edited for publication and conducted with the Vienna Singakademie in the 1860s.
Begräbnisgesang (Burial Song) in C minor dates from 1858, the same year Brahms composed his Ave Maria, Op. 12. He scored the piece for a reserved palette of instruments: oboes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, trombones, tuba, and timpani. At times, the timbre evokes a military band, and Brahms heads the score with the marking “tempo of a funeral march.” The text for Begräbnisgesang is the hymn “Nun lasst uns den Leib begraben” by the 16th-century Protestant reformer and theologian Michael Weiße. The roots of the text inform Brahms’s word painting, which evokes early-modern musical styles, and the instrumental writing, which recalls J. S. Bach’s cantatas.
The first section of Begräbnisgesang grows from the chant-like opening through the chorus’s statement of the text Wenn Gottes Posaun wird angehn. The phrase would usually be rendered in English as “when God’s trumpet sounds,” but since the German word Posaun means “trombone,” Brahms gives these instruments full voice. The second section comprises the next three stanzas, reflecting on the departed spirit’s rest. The final stanza brings the figurative burial ritual to an end, and the music recedes with the mourners.
Prime among Brahms’s earliest mature compositions stands Ein deutsches Requiem, nach Worten der heiligen Schrift (A German Requiem, after the Words of the Holy Scriptures). In terms of performance length and forces required, it is the biggest work in his catalog, and, with the possible exception of the later Alto Rhapsody, it remains his most-performed choral work. Its status as a repertory staple is assured, and countless conductors, orchestras, and choruses can boast a recording of Ein deutsches Requiem among their catalogs—if not several.
Ein deutsches Requiem displays a masterful use of the orchestra that hints at the achievements of Brahms’s four symphonies and mature concertos in the subsequent decades. The work is scored for a typical Romantic orchestra, augmented by harp and organ. Conscious of the commercial worth of his compositions, Brahms prepared a four-hand piano version of the Requiem for domestic use, and it was in this iteration that the work was first heard in England in 1871. The real star of Ein deutsches Requiem, however, is the human voice, which Brahms deploys with endless invention between the soprano soloist, baritone soloist, and mixed choir.
Brahms embarked upon the composition of the Requiem in 1865 following the death of his mother, Johanna, an event conventionally considered to be the work’s catalyst. He completed all but the fifth movement by the end of the following year. A partial (and decidedly mixed) premiere in Vienna during the winter of 1867 was followed by a triumphant performance of six of the piece’s movements in Bremen on Good Friday in 1868 for a benefit concert under Brahms’s baton. A month after this performance, Brahms completed a new movement for soprano soloist, which premiered on its own in September 1868. This was added to the full score as the fifth movement, and the complete version of Ein deutsches Requiem premiered in Leipzig in February 1869.
Despite its sacred connotations, the use of the word “Requiem” in the title is something of a misnomer. Brahms did not set the Latin Mass for the Dead, nor does the work follow any strict liturgical outline. Already, this places the score closer to the oratorio tradition. Instead of any established ritual text, the composer drew upon an equally potent spiritual authority: the “Holy Scriptures” of Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible, published in its entirety in 1534. Though Brahms’s relationship with his Lutheran faith was somewhat ambivalent, he held a special fondness for the child’s edition of Luther given to him as a boy, and it was from this book that he copied out the passages for his text.
Furthermore, the designation of the piece as a specifically “German” Requiem has less to do with any nationalistic concerns versus those of the language and culture of the German-speaking world, for which Luther’s translation was foundational. In what is perhaps its most distinguishing feature, Ein deutsches Requiem is less preoccupied with the divine judgment of souls (the familiar “fire and brimstone” theatrics) than with the act of grieving and the spiritual comfort offered by human faith—individual and communal. Indeed, Brahms commented before the performance in Bremen that the adjective “German” could easily be replaced with the word “human.” In all these regards, the Requiem avoids the more dramatic extremes of the Requiems by Mozart and Verdi, but it still packs its musical wallops in an extraordinary fashion.
In the first movement, the orchestral forces (notably minus the violins) support Brahms’s chorale-like setting in F major of the second Beatitude from the Gospel of Matthew: “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Brahms then inserts the text of Psalm 126, providing a joyous outburst in the contrasting middle section. Brahms sets the tone for his choral writing at the outset of this movement, keeping the texture restrained and deliberate.
An imposing dirge in B-flat minor is the central musical idea of the second movement. Brahms builds up the sobering proclamations of “For all flesh is as grass” from the First Epistle of Peter. These laments are tempered with texts from James and later Isaiah, which counter the inevitability of decline with the hope of deliverance with triumphal gestures. The third movement introduces the baritone soloist, and the text of Psalm 39 marks the first time the singers refer to themselves in the first person. Taking up the promise of hope in the Lord, this movement presents the first great fugue of the Requiem, celebrating the souls of the righteous.
The central fourth movement brings the choral forces back into play, combining serene contemplation with robust polyphony in the text from Psalm 84. After this cascade of voices, Brahms next draws out a solo soprano for another movement of personal address, the chorus intoning a beautiful setting of “As one who comforts their mother, so will I comfort you.” Visions of the Resurrection occupy the sixth movement, and here, the composer unleashes his full contrapuntal fury, taunting Death and Hell and lauding the power of the Lord. The majestic final movement unites the choir in a sublime conclusion that returns to the themes of the work’s opening, including the first word, selig (“blessed”). The text from the Book of Revelation speaks of the works of the dead following behind them, a fitting expression of how the legacy of Brahms’s score resounds today over a century and a half later.
—Ryan M. Prendergast