Alto rhapsody

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Johannes Brahms around 1870

The Rhapsody for an Alto Voice, Male Choir and Orchestra op. 53, commonly known as Alto Rhapsody for short , is a choral work by Johannes Brahms (1833–1897) based on a text by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , written in 1869.

Emergence

In February 1869, Brahms' cantata Rinaldo op. 50, a work for solo voice, choir and orchestra based on a text by Goethe, had its world premiere. In the same year Brahms chose a text by this poet for another vocal work, this time stanzas 5–7 from his Harzreise in winter . The gloomy text, which is one of Goethe's more difficult to access works, describes with the opening words “ But apart, who is it? “A self-isolating loner who“ drank human hatred from the abundance of love ”.

There is broad agreement that with this composition Brahms processed a disappointed (but never clearly expressed) love for Clara Schumann's daughter Julie. The assumption is based, among other things, on a letter from Brahms dated August 28, 1869 to the publisher Fritz Simrock (24-year-old Julie Schumann was engaged to an Italian count in July 1869): “ Here I wrote a wedding song for the Schumann family Countess - but with anger I write such things - with anger! How should it be there! “Brahms borrowed the unusual title“ Rhapsody ”for a choral work accompanied by orchestra from the title of a piano song by Johann Friedrich Reichardt over a partially identical text excerpt.

The premiere took place on March 3, 1870 in Jena with the Academic Choral Society of the University of Jena under Ernst Naumann and the soloist Pauline Viardot-Garcia . This was preceded by a test performance in Karlsruhe in late autumn 1869 . The Brahms Circle of Friends, including Clara Schumann and Theodor Billroth , were impressed and moved by the composition, which was made famous in the following years by the singer Amalie Joachim , Joseph Joachim's wife .

The first print was published in 1870 as op. 53 by Verlag N. Simrock, Berlin.

Work description

Cast and duration of performance

The alto rhapsody is set for alto solo, 4-part male choir (tenor I / II, bass I / II) and orchestra. The orchestral line-up includes 2 flutes , 2 oboes , 2 clarinets , 2 bassoons , 2 horns and strings .

The performance lasts about 12 to 15 minutes.

music

According to the three stanzas set to music, the composition is in three parts. The first stanza (C minor) is introduced by a short orchestral prelude ( adagio ), which is determined by dissonant accents and a descending line with figures of sighs in the bassoons, cellos and basses, accompanied by tremolos on the violins and violas. The added alto part is expressive and recitative. The second stanza - also in C minor - is composed as a three-part aria . As in the 1st verse, extreme leaps in intervals up to the duodecime are characteristic of the solo part . In the third stanza, underpainting the alto voice, a hymnic male choir joins, according to the more hopeful text in the manner of an intercession (“ If a note is audible in his ear in your Psalter, Father of Love, refresh his heart ”), a turn to C follows - Major in which the work concludes in a forgiving manner.

literature

  • Kurt Pahlen : Oratorios of the World . Munich, Heyne, 1987, ISBN 3-453-00923-1 , pp. 113/114
  • Werner Oehlmann: Reclam's choir leader . 2nd edition, Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart, 1976, ISBN 3-15-010017-8 , pp. 462-464.
  • Wolfgang Sandberger (Ed.): Brahms Handbook , joint edition JB Metzler'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung and Bärenreiter, 2009, ISBN 978-3-476-02233-2 (Bärenr.), Pp. 284–286.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cit. n. W. Sandberger, p. 284

Web links