Recorded in August 2022 at concerts given in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie by the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg under Kent Nagano, this version of Johannes Brahms’s celebrated choral masterpiece will come as a surprise to many. The German Requiem is heard not in its usual seven movement version, but rather as it was first performed in Bremen Cathedral on 10th April 1868 (Good Friday) under Brahms’s direction, without the fifth movement for soprano and choir that was completed later that year. On the other hand, there are numerous interludes, instrumental and vocal, secular and sacred, by Bach, Tartini, Schumann and Handel – including pieces that were then regarded as essential parts of a Good Friday concert. Such a programme might seem unusual today, but these musical additions shed new light on Brahms’s work, which in this version manifests itself as what Umberto Eco might have described as an ‘open work’. Presenting the work in the form heard at the Bremen premiere is more than just a reconstruction: it enriches our understanding of this unique music.
Gramophone
Kent Nagano has recorded Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem as it was presented at the work’s Bremen premiere on Good Friday 1868, without the yet-to-be-composed fifth movement, but with musical interpolations and vast choral forces. Andrew Farach-Colton finds out more
Presto Music
Recorded in August 2022 at concerts given in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie by the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg under Kent Nagano, this version of Johannes Brahms’s celebrated choral masterpiece will come as a surprise to many. The German Requiem is heard not in its usual seven movement version, but rather as it was first performed in Bremen Cathedral on 10th April 1868 (Good Friday) under Brahms’s direction, without the fifth movement for soprano and choir that was completed later that year. On the other hand, there are numerous interludes, instrumental and vocal, secular and sacred, by Bach, Tartini, Schumann and Handel – including pieces that were then regarded as essential parts of a Good Friday concert. Such a programme might seem unusual today, but these musical additions shed new light on Brahms’s work, which in this version manifests itself as what Umberto Eco might have described as an ‘open work’. Presenting the work in the form heard at the Bremen premiere is more than just a reconstruction: it enriches our understanding of this unique music.
The New York Times
The Good Friday premiere of Brahms’s “Ein Deutsches Requiem,” or “A German Requiem,” in 1868 at Bremen Cathedral was a major success for the 34-year-old composer, who conducted the performance in front of 2,500 listeners. But what they heard was not the “Requiem” cherished by concert audiences today. Brahms had yet to compose the fifth of what would, in its final form, become seven movements. And to appease local religious authorities who took issue with the texts that Brahms had set — excerpts from scripture about death and consolation that included no mention of Jesus — he interwove his own music with works by other composers.
That original version was reconstructed and recorded in 2022 at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany, featuring 400 singers from eight community choirs. It is an unexpectedly moving testament to the living historical traditions and communal piety that influenced Brahms. Instrumental interludes by Bach, Tartini and Schumann create meditative pockets amid the austere tenderness of Brahms’s choral numbers. After offering a heart-rending aria from Bach’s “St. Matthew’s Passion,” Brahms gives the last word to Handel, concluding this “Requiem” — however scandalously to modern ears — with the radiant “Hallelujah” chorus. CORINNA da FONSECA-WOLLHEIM