Human Requiem (U.S
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Sunday, October 16, 2016, at 7:30 pm Tuesday–Wednesday, October 18–19, 2016, at 7:30 pm Post-performance discussion on Tuesday, October 18 with Simon Halsey, Jochen Sandig, and Patrick Castillo human requiem (U.S. premiere) Rundfunkchor Berlin Simon Halsey , Conductor Marlis Petersen , Soprano Konrad Jarnot , Baritone Angela Gassenhuber , Piano Philip Mayers , Piano Nicolas Fink , Co-Conductor Jochen Sandig , Concept and Scenic Realization Brad Hwang , Spatial Concept Jörg Bittner , Lighting BRAHMS Ein deutsches Requiem for soloists, chorus, and piano four hands (1868/2004) Arranged by Phillip Moll from the original transcription by Brahms Selig sind, die da Leid tragen Denn alles Fleisch, es ist wie Gras Herr, lehre doch mich Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt Selig sind die Toten This performance is approximately 70 minutes long without intermission. Please join the artists for a White Light Lounge immediately following the performance. These performances are made possible in part by the Josie Robertson Fund for Lincoln Center. Steinway Piano Please make certain all your electronic devices Synod House, are switched off. Cathedral of St. John the Divine WhiteLightFestival.org MetLife is the National Sponsor of Lincoln Center. UPCOMING WHITE LIGHT FESTIVAL EVENTS: Artist Catering provided by Zabar’s and Zabars.com Friday, October 21 at 7:30 pm in the Church of St. Mary the Virgin American Airlines is the Official Airline of Lincoln Immortal Bach Center Rundfunkchor Berlin Gijs Leenaars , conductor Nespresso is the Official Coffee of Lincoln Center Ezra Seltzer , cello Avi Stein , chamber organ NewYork-Presbyterian is the Official Hospital of SCHÜTZ: Ist nicht Ephraim mein teurer Sohn Lincoln Center BACH: Fürchte dich nicht; Komm, Jesu, Komm! BRAHMS: Fest- und Gedenksprüche; Warum ist das Licht gegeben human requiem is a production of Rundfunkchor SCHOENBERG: Friede auf Erden Berlin (Berlin Radio Choir) in cooperation with NYSTEDT: Immortal Bach Sasha Waltz & Guests and RADIALSYSTEM V Wednesday–Thursday, October 26–27 at 7:30 pm in the Rose Theater Babel(words) Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui , choreography Damien Jalet , choreography Antony Gormley , visual design Music: Patrizia Bovi, Mahabub Khan, Sattar Khan, Gabriele Miracle, Shogo Yoshii Pre-performance discussion on October 26 at 6:15 pm with Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Jane Moss Sunday, October 30 at 3:00 pm in David Geffen Hall Verdi Requiem London Symphony Orchestra Gianandrea Noseda , conductor Erika Grimaldi , soprano Daniela Barcellona , mezzo-soprano Francesco Meli , tenor Vitalij Kowaljow , bass London Symphony Chorus Simon Halsey , chorus director Pre-concert lecture by Andrew Shenton at 1:45 pm in the Stanley H. Kaplan Penthouse For tickets, call (212) 721-6500 or visit WhiteLightFestival.org. Call the Lincoln Center Info Request Line at (212) 875-5766 to learn about pro - gram cancellations or to request a White Light Festival brochure. Visit WhiteLightFestival.org for full festival listings. Join the conversation: #LCWhiteLight We would like to remind you that the sound of coughing and rustling paper might distract the performers and your fellow audience members. In consideration of the performing artists and members of the audience, those who must leave before the end of the performance are asked to do so between pieces. The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in the building. Conductor’s Note the performance I expect that you, like me, may want to walk for some blocks lost in By Simon Halsey your own thoughts. “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve The choir was initially apprehensive—it gotten me into!” takes a lot to learn such a big and complex —Oliver Hardy, 1930 work by heart, but the benefits are immense. It allows our singers to listen, Our best ideas at Rundfunkchor Berlin are collaborate, and think in a heightened way. the ones that were suggested almost off- Each singer must take an extraordinary handedly in the beginning: Why not do a degree of personal responsibility for the choral opera in Europe’s coolest techno notes, the text, the dynamics, colors, and club? Present a late-night concert of expression; they must tell you, the audi - polyphony in a disused power station? ence, the story eye to eye, and they must Let’s sing an all-night vigil in an art gallery! achieve balance and blend of their voices Bach Passions in October anyone? and splendid intonation without always being able to clearly see or even hear each Like the Bach Passions, Brahms’s Ein other. Subsequently, these heightened deutsches Requiem is beloved, even re - sensibilities and awareness have greatly vered. Isn’t it perfect as it stands in conven - impacted the choir’s more conventional tional concert form? Why stage a piece concerts. These singers have become a revered for its slow unfolding of inner truths? team that can be guided by a nudge to the steering wheel by their conductor. My job You decide whether Jochen Sandig, our has become an unusually collaborative one: director, has staged the work or not. I sug - guiding and suggesting the progress of the gest he has done something much more score rather than dictating it. It is the ulti - interesting: He has helped us all view mate listening. Brahms’s masterpiece from the inside—to contemplate the meaning of the text Why have we chosen the Synod House? together, audience and performers alike as human requiem works best in a relatively one community. small venue, where the ratio of performers to listeners is quite high. We were also The choir calls this Requiem “medicine for after a dignified, unusual space with a good the voice,” but it is also medicine for the acoustic in which we could include every - soul and perfect for the fractured times in one in telling this story. We are privileged which we live. It is not specifically denom - to be here and look forward to sharing this inational and invites us to consider our experience with you. place in the world and our relationships both on earth and in a wider context. After —Copyright © 2016 by Simon Halsey WhiteLightFestival.org Note on the Program composer wrote an additional movement to complete the work as we know it. By Paul Schiavo Brahms scored the music of his requiem Ein deutsches Requiem for soloists, for voices and orchestra, but he also made chorus, and piano four hands (1868/2004) JOHANNES BRAHMS two transcriptions of the orchestral accom - Born May 7, 1833, in Hamburg, Germany paniment for keyboard. The first, written Died April 3, 1897, in Vienna toward the end of 1866, reduced the orchestra’s part to piano and seems Arranged by Phillip Moll from the original intended to show the piece to prospective transcription by Brahms conductors. Two years later, following the PHILLIP MOLL Bremen premiere, he made a more satis - Born September 16, 1943 in Chicago factory arrangement for two players at a single piano, an arrangement he permitted Approximate length: 70 minutes to be published, and which remains in use today. This evening’s performance uses an Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem grew out arrangement by Phillip Moll of Brahms’s of personal loss yet is deeply imbued with own transcription. universal significance. This work consti - tutes a profound meditation on death, one As the composition took shape, Brahms that expresses both sorrow and solace. occasionally showed the score to fellow Although its title and certain aspects of its musicians. One was Karl Reinthaler , direc - text and music make reference to the tor of music at the cathedral in Bremen. Requiem Mass of Catholic liturgy, Ein Reinthaler wanted the composition to con - deutsches Requiem departs significantly vey more conventional ecclesiastic doc - from ecclesiastic tradition. Rather, it is trine. “From a Christian perspective,” more closely allied to the spirit of human - Reinthaler argued, “it lacks the point ism, as Brahms himself indicated. around which everything rotates, namely the saving death of the Lord.” Brahms, Creation of Ein deutsches Requiem however, felt little sympathy for organized spanned more than a decade. In 1857, fol - religion, and he answered Reinthaler’s plea lowing the death of his mentor and early for a more specifically Christian orientation champion, Robert Schumann, Brahms by declaring that he intended the composi - reworked music originally conceived for tion to be a “human requiem.” his early D-minor Piano Concerto into a choral setting of the verses “Denn alles The broad formal shape of Ein deutsches Fleisch, es ist wie Gras” (“Thus all flesh is Requiem has a symmetry comparable to like grass”), from the First Epistle of Peter. that of a Gothic arch: The first and final This would become the second movement movements resemble each other in tone, of Ein deutsches Requiem , though Brahms as do the second and sixth, and the third did not initially think of it as part of a larger and fifth movements. The fourth move - work. But with the passing of his mother, ment serves as a keystone, crowning the in February 1865, Brahms began to seek arch and unifying the entire structure. out other scriptural texts appropriate to mourning, drawing on the Gospels, Psalms, Brahms’s music for the first movement and other parts of the Bible in German trans - establishes a comforting tone well suited to lation (hence the composition’s title, “A the words “Selig sind, die da Leid tragen” German Requiem”). A prelim inary version, (“Blessed are they that mourn”). The tempo comprising six movements, was performed indication of the second movement reads in Bremen in 1868. Shortly thereafter, the “Slow, in the manner of a march,” and the music of the opening section indeed sug - and Brahms, despite his determina tion to gests a funeral procession.