Johannes Brahms
Ein deutsches Requiem

Living with a big ape clinging to one's neck cannot be comfortable at all, especially if the monster has a tousled head and fiery gaze that we can appreciate in most portraits of Ludwig Van Beethoven. Yet at least until the age of forty, Johannes Brahms must have often felt this way, as any of his ambitious opera projects would inevitably run aground in the face of the inevitable comparison with what had already been accomplished by his titanic predecessor. To this must also be added his exaggerated sense of self-criticism, to which we owe the destruction of an unknown number of youthful works, deemed unworthy by the author. Not even the lavish and rhetorical praises of his "talent-scout" Robert Schumann ("...he is among us, a creature of young blood; around his cradle, the Graces and Heroes have watched..." and so on) were able to affect the innate tendency to what back then were not yet called "mental issues" but indeed existed. 

 

And surely there are masterpieces aplenty even in the youthful part of his catalog, but generally, they consist either of delightful chamber combinations of few instruments or more vehement pages for piano. The rare forays into vocal music almost always fall within the restricted and intimate realm of Lieder.

 

And then there's the great exception, the one you wouldn't expect in a pre-symphonic Brahms, perhaps an even more fundamental work than the First Symphony in the arduous conquest of self-confidence.

It's the German Requiem Op. 45 (1868), or rather a German Requiem (Ein deutsches Requiem). "A" and not "the," because the words are not the canonical ones of the traditional mass for the deceased, but verses taken here and there from the Bible according to the expressive needs of the author, and moreover sung in German, instead of the usual Latin typical of every mass, including the requiem mass. Another anomaly is the division into seven parts, instead of the canonical five.   

But how can we explain all this sort of revolution on the part of the "conservative" Brahms?

Well, first of all, there's much to discuss about this label, applied to the Hamburg composer in his time, but it would lead us off course. However, what matters is that it's a purely formal revolution: in fact, this monumental work perfectly reconciles contrapuntal rigor and fanciful romantic tremors, which is typically Brahmsian.

 

If we move from form to content, the first thing that strikes in this anomalous Requiem is the prevalence of a consolatory atmosphere, of divine calmness. In the afterlife that Brahms presents to us, we will not be deafened by the theatrical roar with which Verdi represents the furious anger of the Almighty ("Dies Irae"). Nor will the abysses open before us with which Mozart gives us chills in the "Dies Irae," in the "Confutatis," and especially in the "Rex tremendae" (the latter incidentally recently used to introduce the repellent "Minister of Fear" played by Antonio Albanese). 

It's not as though there are no disturbing moments, but more than refer to the afterlife, they are linked to earthly life and its transience, because "all mortals are as grass (...) and the grass withers" as the words of the second movement state, not coincidentally the most engaging, and for me also the most inspired. 

 

But let's go in order. In the first of the seven movements ("Blessed are the sorrowful, for they will be comforted...") the choir and orchestra, with a prevalence of lower-register instruments, create melodies worthy of a romantic symphony, initially subtle, then a little more rippled, but never impetuous.

 

It's like an introduction that leads us into a climate of serene hope, abruptly broken by the already mentioned second movement, in which the relentless passing of time is marked by the dark rumble of the timpani. Strong and regular beats alternated with long rolls bear more resemblance to the way a modern drum kit is played, rather than the moderate, almost feather-like use usually made of this instrument in classical music. A driving rhythm accompanies one of the most moving melodies of the entire Brahmsian work (and we're not talking about a joker); only towards the end does the choir unleash in a powerful and relatively joyful fugue.

 

The third movement ("Reveal to me, Lord, my end...") is also very disturbing, both in the heartfelt initial invocation, entrusted to the baritone's voice, supported here and there by the choir, and in the powerful final fugue, enough to resurrect with joy the good old Johann Sebastian Bach, almost forgotten by most at the time, but certainly not by the "traditionalist" Brahms. 

 

The fourth movement ("How lovely are your dwellings..."), a brief choral gently agitated in the middle section, and the fifth ("So you also are in sorrow, but I will see you again..."), with the heavenly dialogue between soprano and choir, are a large oasis of peace through which the listener can pass in perfect beatitude, which for a Requiem is truly unusual, although a few years later Gabriel Fauré would manage to lull us with what some call a "lullaby of death."    

 

With the sixth movement ("For we have here no lasting city...") we return to trembling, and this time not by looking back on past life, but in anticipation of the moment when the trumpet of divine judgment will sound, which here explodes in the form of a broad and complex fugue episode, with the choir being the main protagonist. It is the only movement truly comparable to the canonical ones of the traditional Requiem (to the "Dies irae"), and it is also the only one in which Brahms seems to abandon the idea of an afterlife that is anything but terrifying.

 

To bring us back on track in this vision is the seventh movement ("Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth...") which closes the Requiem with an almost perfect symmetry, not only by presenting again the calmness of the first movement but also by recovering its dominant motive at the end, after a prolonged and very sweet idyll between the choir and orchestra.

 

That this injection of beatitude, and moreover in a work still dealing with death, comes to us from a musician tormented by exaggerated sensitivity, is part of the many contradictions that make Brahms's music so fascinating, despite its complexity. To be able to listen to the First Symphony would have taken another five years, but we can well say that after this Requiem the ghost of Beethoven, despite not wanting to detach itself from Brahms's shoulders, at least begins to stagger. Although if one were to find a work that has some affinity with this "unicum," one would inevitably land on the "Missa solemnis" of the immense Ludwig. At this point, I say: Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Herbert Von Karajan, choir Wiener Singverein, soloists Gundula Janowitz (soprano) and Eberhard Wachter. So I can conclude without having to add a comment on the quality of the performance.