Orchestra's heavyweight Brahms Requiem

A 1980 New York Times review of the Brahms German Requiem referred to it as a "heavy number." That label neatly summarized the ponderous orchestrations, vocalizations and excerpts from the Lutheran Bible that the composer wove together to create an ecumenical testament to humanity, free of the specific credo of Christ's resurrection that occupies the center of nearly all masses and requiems.

This deliberate omission by Brahms took considerable courage on his part and incurred criticism from the clergy of his time. Somehow, Brahms created a beautiful and masterful work out of a tortuous combination of ingredients, and it catapulted him to fame when it was first performed in 1867.

A 1961 recording by Otto Klemperer, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Elizabeth Schwartzkopf provided one definitive version for the ages. That interpretation represented for Klemperer a healing of his country 16 years after the Nazi era, so it offered a kinder, gentler reading than last weekend's, in which Yannick Nézét-Séguin worked so hard to evoke powerful sounds from the full-complement Philadelphia Orchestra and Westminster Choir that at one point the baton flew from his hands, deftly recovered and instantly handed back to the maestro by baritone Matthias Goerne.

Relentless intensity

This isn't to say that Nézét-Séguin did anything less than a masterful job of leading his forces through this emotion-laden and complex testament to death as redemptive of the human struggle. The intensity was relentless, and the large ensemble— which took up the entire breadth of Verizon Hall's stage as well as the seats above it— gave a stirring performance that elicited a standing ovation from the nearly full-house audience.

Something about this performance seemed to bode well for this world-class orchestra in the throes of bankruptcy, and the presence of the outstanding Westminster Choir and German-bred soloists Goerne and soprano Dorothea Röschmann added to the sense of historic moments that contributes importantly to this Orchestra's legendary mystique.

Is awe appropriate?

The question that arises, following such a power-packed performance, is not whether it was an achievement on its own terms "“ which it was "“ but whether it properly places Brahms's work among its great counterparts of requiem music, from Monteverdi and Mozart through Berlioz, Bruckner, Faure and Verdi to Britten and Ligeti, to name a few.

In this performance, the power of the music translated emotionally into awe, constituting a kind of rite of passage. The Berlioz and the Verdi, and also parts of Britten's War Requiem, generate a similar emotional state, while the Mozart and the Faure (especially the latter) are more gentle, compassionate statements, speaking to the private heart and mind of the individual listener.

Joe Frazier's fate

The Brahms Requiem contains alternating elements of both the ritualistic and personal dimensions. The latter element can get lost when all stops are relentlessly pulled out, as occurred in this performance. You could perhaps blame it on Brahms himself, but the 1961 recording by Klemperer, as well as another by Carlos Maria Giulini in 1987 (on Deutsche Grammophon) suggest that it's possible to find introspective and intimate passages within this otherwise grand-scale piece.

After the concert, I found myself thinking of Rod Serling's famous 1956 teleplay, Requiem for a Heavyweight, which inevitably led me to dwell sadly on the fate of Philadelphia's own storied heavyweight champion Joe Frazier, who died of liver cancer just two days later. And that perhaps exemplified the message that Brahms intended to convey— namely that whatever we may achieve in life, our humanity derives from our mortality and the trials we encounter in life.

Humus, humanity, humility. All returns to the earth. Brahms was trying to express that idea in music.♦


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