After a solo soprano and chorus give comfort to the bereaved, Brahms’ Requiem’s version of resurrection, taken from the First Epistle to the Corinthians, contains – unlike the Dies Irae of the Catholic Mass for the Dead – no mention of damnation and hell fire but rather challenges death itself with idea of eternal life:
Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory?
Then having, at the commencement of the work, blessed those that mourn, the composer’s final benediction goes to the dead themselves:
Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem, Op. 45
Selig sind, die da Leid tragen 0:00:44
Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras 0:12:05
Herr, lehre doch mich 0:27:08
Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen 0:37:06
Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit 0:42:36
Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt 0:49:29
Selig sind die Toten, die in dem Herren sterben 1:00:49 ∙
Score
(in English)
… but if you just want a parallel text in German and English and their Biblical sources, click here.
It comes as something of a surprise – given that he was, himself, a brilliant pianist – that Brahms wrote only three piano sonatas and all three are early works. Maybe it was the long shadow cast by Beethoven’s thirty-two works for the instrument, and/or maybe the abstract world of sonata form didn’t quite fit the Romantic ethos of the times.
The Sonata in f is the last of them and is full of the passion and bravura of the young (the composer was just about twenty when he wrote it). It’s – unusually – in five movements and manages to bridge the abstract/ Romantic dichotomy by the hint of some background literary narrative running in parallel with the sonata form. The Andante espressivo bears a superscription from the poet Sternau:
Through evening’s shade, the pale moon gleams
While rapt in love’s ecstatic dreams
Two hearts are fondly beating.
00:00 Allegro maestoso
08:36 Andante espressivo
19:23 Scherzo: Allegro energico – Trio
24:30 Intermezzo (Rückblick): Andante molto
28:21 Finale: Allegro moderato ma rubato
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Pontarddulais!
The Art of Listening 