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
Masterwork Index: A
German Requiem
Mari Ann Häggander (soprano), Siegfried Lorenz (baritone) 