Johannes BRAHMS (1833-1897)
A German Requiem, Op.45 (1868)
Mari Ann Häggander (soprano), Siegfried Lorenz (baritone)
Leipzig Radio Choir and Symphony Orchestra/Herbert Kegel
rec. Paul Gerhardt Church, Leipzig, October 1985
BRILLIANT CLASSICS 94353 [71.42]
It is odd that the three greatest large-scale Requiems of the nineteenth
century - those by Berlioz, Verdi and Brahms - should all have been written
by composers who were most decidedly in various ways at odds with established
religion. This reflection is sparked by the fact that the booklet note by
Klaus Blum with this release spends very little time discussing the music
of the German Requiem itself, and instead spends four very interesting
pages discussing the reasons why Brahms should have lost his faith in the
immortality of the soul. Whatever the reasons, it is noteworthy that the name
of Christ is never once cited in the texts that Brahms himself extracted from
the Bible for his Deutsches Requiem; and it is also of significance
to observe that Brahms actually rejected a recommendation from his friend
Carl Reinthaler that such a reference should be inserted into the text.
Brahms’s agnosticism did not stop the work from being heavily condemned
by George Bernard Shaw and others of his generation for its perceived pious
religiosity, which was probably enhanced by the marmoreal speeds at which
much of the music was performed. In more recent years the tendency has been
towards more flowing speeds, enhancing the dramatic contrasts in the score.
Some of the recordings which have adopted this approach have tended to throw
the baby out with the bathwater, giving a misleading impression that the score
is lighter in spirit than Brahms clearly intended in his heartfelt homage
to the memory of Schumann. The greatest performances give due weight to the
score without reducing it to ponderousness.
This is very nearly a great performance. In the first place, it has Mari-Ann
Häggander, who gives quite simply one of the most beautiful renditions
of the fifth movement that I have ever heard. She has the creamy purity of
Gundula Janowitz (for Karajan on DG) with greater emotion and the poise of
Schwarzkopf (for Klemperer) without any sense of archness. Her voice seems
simply tailor-made for what is a deceptively difficult part. In the second
place, Kegel’s speeds are close to ideal, neither too funereal nor in
too much of a hurry, and the recorded balance between choir and orchestra
is just about ideal. In the third place, Siegmund Nimsgern has just the right
combination of implacability and humanity to make a phrase like “Und
ich davon muss” strike directly to the heart. Finally, Kegel achieves
precisely the right balance between horns and timpani in the opening section
of “Dann alles Fleisch.”
This last point may need some explanation. Brahms has really set performers
an almost insoluble dilemma here. The movement starts with a slow sarabande
which leads into a unison chorale for the choir. The sarabande then returns
but this time with two added elements for rising horns marked ben marcato
and an insistent triplet rhythm in the timpani. This then goes on to underpin
the restatement of the chorale. If the conductor, like Klemperer for EMI,
brings out the horns, then the timpani are relegated to a rhythmic background.
If, like Karajan in his first (DG)
recording he emphasises the timpani, the horns are reduced to a mere background
in their turn. Rattle in his much-praised and otherwise excellent live recording
for EMI
gets the worst of both worlds, neither counterpoint being ideally clear. Kegel
brings out the horns to begin with, and only then brings the timpani forward
to underlie the chorus, which reconciles both elements perfectly. The problem
however comes with his treatment of the chorale itself. He has clearly thought
deeply about the words, and gets his choir to enunciate the text with precision
and point. In doing so he breaks up the implacable vocal line which here should
surely be set in sturdy contrast to the accompaniment. Brahms himself gives
no indications of any dynamic changes in the phrasing - but then he rarely
does.
The same problem tends to arise elsewhere. There is a praiseworthy attempt
to get the meaning of the words across, but this comes at the expense of a
slight sense of ‘niggling’, of not being willing to leave Brahms
to make his points in his own way. Better indeed that than a solemn
religiosity. The pointing of the words is never unconsidered or inappropriate
but sometimes the sense of the lyric line of the music is sacrificed. The
recording itself is close to ideal in the balance between voices and orchestra,
with plenty of instrumental detail coming through. The choir is not over-large,
but the line is always clear. The depiction of the last trumpet in the sixth
movement is dramatic and energetic.
This is not then an overwhelmingly great recording, but nevertheless it is
a very good one - and well worth consideration at the budget price. Brilliant
Classics are once again to be congratulated for their uncanny ability to spot
a deserved reissue of a performance that at the time of its original release
seems to have been comprehensively ignored.
Paul Corfield Godfrey
Not overwhelmingly great but nevertheless very good.
Masterwork Index: A German Requiem