Product Description
Brahms composed the Alto Rhapsody, properly
known as "Rhapsody for Alto, Male Chorus, and Orchestra, opus 53" in 1869. It
was first performed in Jena on March 3, 1870.
The text is based on "Harzreise im
Winter" ("Winter Journey in the Harz Mountains"), a poem by well-known German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). The Alto Rhapsody, like many
of Brahms works, has loneliness and alienation as its central themes. Brahms
devotion to Clara Schumann, Robert Schumanns widow, is well-known (the letters
between her and Brahms fill two volumes). What is less well-known is that he
was undoubtedly very fond of Julie Schumann, Claras daughter.
In 1869, Brahms spent the summer near the
Schumanns residence and was in daily contact with Julie and Clara completing,
among other works, the Liebeslieder ("Love Song") Waltzes.
In early July, Julie announced her engagement.
"Of course, I told Johannes first of all," Clara noted in her diary on the 11th.
Soon after, the conductor Hermann Levi told her that Brahms had been "devotedly
attached" to her daughter. By July 16th, Clara noted in her diary
that Brahms "speaks only in monosyllables . . . [and] treats Julie in the same
manner, although he used to be so especially nice to her. Did he love her?"
Julie was married on September 22. Later on
that very wedding day, Brahms called on Clara, who wrote in her diary,
"Johannes brought me a very wonderful piece . . . the words from Goethes
"Harzreise". . . He called it his bridal song. This piece seems to me neither
more nor less than the expression of his own hearts anguish. If only he would
for once speak so tenderly!" This piece is of course the dark and emotional
"Alto Rhapsody".
Goethes poem "Harzreise im Winter" poetically
describes the kind of life God intends for different temperaments. The three
stanzas set by Brahms concern the fate of a man in fruitless struggle against
the bonds of misery. A young man, turned misanthropic by sorrow, seeks solitude
in the wilderness.
The piece is in the baroque cantata style, with
an opening recitative, and aria, and a concluding chorale. The alto describes
the desolate winter landscape and in the final chorale joins the male chorus in
a prayer for a melody that can bring comfort to the thirsting soul (indeed the
plea "restore his heart" is repeated three times at the end, as a kind of
"Amen"). In the Alto Rhapsody it is not hard to find evidence for Brahms
statement that "I speak through my music."
The foregoing is from a program note written for a
1997 New York Choral Society performance of the "Alto Rhapsody" in observance
of the centenary of the death of Johannes Brahms. It has been taken from the
society web page http://www.nychoral.org/brahms/brahms3.html
An English translation of the German text used
by Brahms
SOLO
But down there, who is it?
His path loses itself in the bush.
Behind him the branches close.
The grass stands up again.
Desolation surrounds him.
O, who heals the wounds of the one to whom balm
has become poison,
who drank hatred of people from the fullness of
love?
Once despised, now a despiser.
Secretly he destroys himself in unsatisfying
self-seeking.
CHORUS
If there is in your psaltery, Father of Love, a
tone his ear can hear, let it enliven his heart.
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