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Unknown Brahms.’ We Hear None of His Celebrated Overtures, Concertos Or Symphonies

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Unknown Brahms.’ We Hear None of His Celebrated Overtures, Concertos Or Symphonies PROGRAM NOTES November 19 and 20, 2016 This weekend’s program might well be called ‘Unknown Brahms.’ We hear none of his celebrated overtures, concertos or symphonies. With the exception of the opening work, all the pieces are rarities on concert programs. Spanning Brahms’s youth through his early maturity, the music the Wichita Symphony performs this weekend broadens our knowledge and appreciation of this German Romantic genius. Hungarian Dance No. 6 Johannes Brahms Born in Hamburg, Germany May 7, 1833 in Hamburg, Germany Died April 3, 1897 in Vienna, Austria Last performed March 28/29, 1992 We don’t think of Brahms as a composer of pure entertainment music. He had as much gravitas as any 19th-century master and is widely regarded as a great champion of absolute music, music in its purest, most abstract form. Yet Brahms loved to quaff a stein or two of beer with friends and, within his circle, was treasured for his droll sense of humor. His Hungarian Dances are perhaps the finest examples of this side of his character: music for relaxation and diversion, intended to give pleasure to both performer and listener. Their music is familiar and beloved - better known to the general public than many of Brahms’s concert works. Thus it comes as a surprise to many listeners to learn that Brahms specifically denied authorship of their melodies. He looked upon these dances as arrangements, yet his own personality is so evident in them that they beg for consideration as original compositions. But if we deem them to be authentic Brahms, do we categorize them as music for one-piano four-hands, solo piano, or orchestra? Versions for all three exist in Brahms's hand. Other arrangements for a wide variety of instrumental combinations have followed, including some by such luminaries as Joseph Joachim and Fritz Kreisler. These circumstances make the Hungarian Dances unique among Brahms's compositions. The Hungarian Dances consist of 21 individual pieces in four books. They were published in two groups, the first in 1868 (parts 1 and 2) and the balance in 1880 (Parts 3 and 4). All the first editions were for one-piano, four hands. Brahms issued the first ten for solo piano in 1872, then orchestrated three of them the following year. (Antonín Dvořák's well-known orchestrations of No’s. 17-21 appeared in 1881.) The composition of these dances was an even more complex and drawn out affair than this publication history indicates. The earliest of the Hungarian Dances may have originated as far back as 1853. We know Brahms had begun playing them for friends by the mid-1850’s, for tales of such impromptu performances occur in memoirs and letters of his contemporaries. Two Hungarian Fiddlers Brahms’s fascination with Hungarian Gypsy music undoubtedly grew out of his association with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi, with whom he toured in 1853. Reményi was responsible for introducing Brahms to Joseph Joachim, another Hungarian violinist with whom Brahms was to have a more lasting and fruitful relationship. Nevertheless, before Brahms and Reményi parted company, the young composer absorbed the flavor and panache of the Gypsy style that was Reményi's specialty. Like most 19th-century musicians, Brahms made no distinction between the folk music of Hungary and Gypsy music. Not until Bartók and Kodály undertook their ethnomusicological research in the early 20th-century did the differences become clear. Thus Brahms described these melodies in a letter to his publisher, Fritz Simrock, as "genuine Gypsy children, which I did not beget but merely brought up with bread and milk." He seems to have been delighted by the nourishment process. The Hungarian Dances gave him a change of pace from sonatas and symphonies. Their lurching momentum and three-bar phrases are markedly different from Brahms's customary style; so too is the episodic structure, with its abrupt changes in tempo, mood, and thematic material. Brahms scored the dances for woodwinds in pairs plus piccolo; four horns, two trumpets, timpani, percussion, and strings. Song of Destiny (Schicksalslied), Op. 54 Johannes Brahms First performances by the Wichita Symphony Brahms was immersed in choral works in the late 1860’s and early 1870’s The musical form derives from the poem, which contrasts two images The first part illustrated heavenly spirits in an idyllic environment Humankind’s lack of control over an uncertain world dominate the second part When Johannes Brahms completed his choral masterpiece, A German Requiem, in 1868, he had labored on its seven movements for more than a decade; indeed, some of its musical ideas had roots extending as far back as 1854. Once undertaken, Brahms’s exploration of the possibilities for chorus and orchestra proved to be thorough. He was enormously encouraged by the warm reception accorded his Requiem. During the next half-dozen years a stream of splendid choral works flowed from his pen. First was Rinaldo, Op. 50, a cantata for tenor and male chorus. Then in short order followed the Alto Rhapsody, Op. 53, Schicksalslied, Op. 54, Triumphlied, Op. 55 for baritone and eight-part chorus. Clearly A German Requiem had loosed a fount of ideas. In Schicksalslied, whose title means "Song of Destiny," Brahms focused on one of his favorite themes: the futility of man's destiny in a storm-tossed world. Friedrich Hölderlin's poem comes from his epistolary novel Hyperion oder der Eremit in Griechenland (Hyperion or the Hermit in Greece, 1797-99), which idealizes the culture and humanity of Ancient Greece. Hyperions Schicksalslied deals with the plight of mankind misplaced and cast adrift within his milieu. Brahms came across the text while visiting his friends the Dietrichs at Oldenburg in 1868. Albert Dietrich later published a memoir of the composer, in which he reported that Brahms was uncharacteristically serious during his stay. He told us that early that morning (he always rose at dawn) he had found Hölderlin's poems in the bookcase, and had been most deeply moved by "Hyperions Schicksalslied." When, later in the day, after having wandered about and seen everything of interest, we sat down by the sea to rest, we discovered Brahms at a great distance, sitting alone on the beach and writing. These were the first sketches for the Schicksalslied. Generally when Brahms was so taken by a text, work proceeded rapidly, and such was the case with this new piece. But a satisfactory conclusion eluded him, and he did not finalize the ending until 1871. Problematic poem The compositional problem lay in the structure of the poem. Hölderlin's text is bipartite. The two opening stanzas relate man's envy of the blissful state in which heaven's blessed spirits exist. When man's earthly situation is introduced in the third stanza, the tone changes dramatically. The cruelty of Fate is exposed as a relentless force driving man to endless suffering in his search to escape darkness and turmoil in favor of peace and everlasting light. As compelling and worthy of musical setting as he found these ideas, the formalist in Brahms was inherently inimical to the two-part structure of the poem. He solved the problem by adding a third instrumental section, closing the work without chorus. About the music Schicksalslied opens with a tranquil Adagio in E-flat major depicting the idyllic retreat of the divinities. Only the quiet and insistent pulse of the timpani hints at the havoc and distress of mortal life. After the celestial opening prelude, the altos introduce the first choral segment; they are joined by the balance of the chorus in music of exquisite serenity. When the second section interrupts in storm-tossed C minor, the contrast is riveting. Brahms's music explodes in an expression of humanity's earthbound agony. The sheer force of his compound choral and orchestral walls of sound has colossal drama. Brahms, however, cannot end on a gloomy note. Schicksalslied closes with a repeat of the orchestral prelude, transposed to C major. He thereby eases the pain of the depressing ending implied by the text. Where Hölderlin simply presented both scenarios, passing no judgment, Brahms elected to provide a dénouement. This conclusion is no conventional happy ending. He leaves a measure of suspense and mystery by means of the timpani, whose inexorable, driving rumble persists even through the quiet final measures. The score calls for woodwinds, horns and trumpets in pairs, three trombones, timpani, mixed chorus and strings. Nänie, Op. 82 Johannes Brahms First performances by the Wichita Symphony The choral music of Johannes Brahms is one of the romantic period’s richest troves. The mid-19th century was a wonderful era for choral music and choral festivals. Early in his career, Brahms worked extensively with choral groups, including the Hamburg Women’s Chorus, which he founded, and a Detmold choral society. After his arrival in Vienna in the early 1860’s, one of his first formal appointments was as conductor of the Vienna Singakademie. He wrote for all the ensembles he led, arranging folk songs and other composers’ music, writing the occasional sacred piece and setting a wide variety of German poetry for female chorus, men’s chorus and mixed voices. His list of works for chorus and orchestra is shorter, but distinguished by its high musical quality. Yet apart from his beloved German Requiem and an occasional dusting off of the Alto Rhapsody, precious little of it gets performed. Nänie (1880-81), one of his last compositions for mixed chorus and orchestra, is a miracle of serenity and Brahmsian beauty: meltingly lovely music that will delight fans of Brahms who are unacquainted with this little-known area of his compositions.
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