Song of Destiny (Brahms)

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Johannes Brahms around 1870

Das Schicksalslied op. 54 is a work for choir and orchestra by Johannes Brahms (1833–1897), premiered in 1871 , in which the poem of the same name by Friedrich Hölderlin is set to music.

Origin and reception

In the years after the completion of the German Requiem , Johannes Brahms focused on other works for choir and orchestra: the cantata Rinaldo op.50, the alto rhapsody op.51 and the song of fate op.54, followed by the triumphal song op.55 .

When Brahms used Goethe's texts for Rinaldo and the Alto Rhapsody , he was inspired by a poem by Friedrich Hölderlin to compose the song of fate . Albert Dietrich reports on a trip to Wilhelmshaven with his wife and the Reinthaler couple in the summer of 1868 : “On the way, the otherwise lively friend was quiet and serious. He said that early in the morning he had found Holderlin's poems in the bookcase and was deeply moved by the song of fate. Later, when, after a long wandering around and after seeing all the interesting things, we sat resting by the sea, we soon discovered Brahms far away, sitting lonely on the beach and writing. They were the first sketches of the song of fate [...]. "

That with Hyperion's Song of Destiny titled poem Hölderlin is from the second volume of letter-novel Hyperion or the Hermit in Greece , which was published 1799th While the first two stanzas depict the world of the gods as a human vision of longing, the third stanza describes, in sharp contrast, the hopeless suffering of people.

For a long time Brahms occupied himself with the implementation in a musically balanced form. The score was not finished until May 1871 in Lichtental and then handed over to the conductor, Hermann Levi , who was friends . He also made the piano reduction, in which Brahms made further changes. The formal solution finally found, to allow the gloomy world of the third verse to be followed by a positive instrumental aftermath based on the music of the opening section, gave Brahms self-doubt, so that after completing the score he wanted to insert the first two verses with chorus again - Levi's copy of this version has been preserved - although he was less concerned with the words than with the sound effect (“I would like the choir to just sing 'ah', quasi growls.”). However, Levi, who also gave some practical instrumentation recommendations, dissuaded Brahms from doing this again. During the rehearsal for the premiere, as Florence May reports, Brahms paid particular attention to this instrumental aftermath.

The first performance took place on October 18, 1871 in Karlsruhe in the first Wednesday concert of the Philharmonic Society, with Hermann Levi conducting in part, while Brahms conducted his fateful song himself. The program also included scenes from Goethe's Faust by Robert Schumann and two songs by Franz Schubert orchestrated by Brahms .

The song of fate left a deep impression on the Karlsruhe audience, and in early 1872 further performances followed in Bremen, Breslau, Frankfurt and Vienna.

The first print of the song of fate (score, piano reduction, choir and orchestral parts) was published in December 1871 as op. 54 by Verlag N. Simrock , Berlin.

In his graphic cycle Brahms-Phantasie , Max Klinger was inspired, among other things, by the song of fate .

Work description

Cast and duration of performance

Das Schicksalslied is set for four-part choir (without solo parts) and orchestra. The orchestra consists of 2 flutes , 2 oboes , 2 clarinets , 2 bassoons , 2 horns , 2 trumpets , 3 trombones , timpani and strings .

The performance lasts around 16 minutes.

music

Song of Destiny, 1st verse, alto insert

The work begins with an orchestral prelude in E flat major, entitled “Slowly and Sehnsuchtsvoll”, which - accompanied by a timpani ostinato - joins the bright world of the first two verses. From bar 29, the choir starts “semper dolce”, initially with the alto voices on the text “You walk up in the light on soft ground, blessed geniuses”. The end of the 1st stanza "[...] like the artist's fingers sacred strings" symbolize arpeggios of the string instruments.

In contrast to the second stanza, which fades away in pianissimo, is the third stanza beginning in bar 104, now in the parallel key of C minor, characterized by excited string figures, hard accents and dissonances. In order to achieve a balance with the length of the first part of the choir, your text is repeated. The choral section, which ends with the halting declamation of the text ending “into the unknown” and in orchestral theme fragments over a soft drum organ point, is followed from bar 380 by an orchestral aftermath in C major that mitigates its fatalism, in which the solo flute “legato e molto espressivo” is followed by the instrumental introduction.

literature

  • Victor Ravizza: Symphonic Choral Works. In: Wolfgang Sandberger (Ed.): Brahms Handbook. Joint edition JB Metzler'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung / Bärenreiter, Stuttgart / Kassel 2009, ISBN 978-3-476-02233-2 (Bärenr.), Pp. 286–290.
  • Werner Oehlmann: Reclam's choir leader. 2nd Edition. Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 1976, ISBN 3-15-010017-8 , pp. 464-465.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Albert Dietrich: Memories of Johannes Brahms in letters especially from his youth. Leipzig 1898, p. 65. Quoted from Max Kalbeck: Johannes Brahms. Volume II, reprint. Schneider, Tutzing 1976, ISBN 3-7952-0187-X , p. 361.
  2. ↑ Text of the poem in the context of the chapter in the Gutenberg-DE project
  3. ^ Max Kalbeck: Johannes Brahms. Volume II, reprint. Schneider, Tutzing 1976, ISBN 3-7952-0187-X , p. 366.
  4. a b Florence May: Johannes Brahms. Vol. 2. Matthes & Seitz, Munich 1983, ISBN 3-88221-343-4 , p. 117.
  5. ^ Program of the premiere concert in 1871
  6. Max Klinger, Brahms Fantasy: Song of Destiny