Great Love and Admiration
Helmuth Rilling and the Requiem by Brahms
50 years of Carus – 50 years of passion for choral music, which we share with you. In the Carus anniversary year, each month in the CARUS blog prominent choral directors present their personal highlight from five centuries of choral music for you.
When I gave my first concert in the 1950s with the newly-formed Gächinger Kantorei, I chose a program including unaccompanied choral works by Johannes Brahms. The reaction of my choral conducting professor was one of absolute dismay: “You are bringing back repertoire with this turgid Romantic music which we had finally got rid of!”
My great love and admiration for the music of Johannes Brahms has stayed with me all my life. For me, the Brahms Requiem in particular is one of the most important and most moving works in the history of music.
I have performed it many times. To be able to perform the German Requiem for the first time in Tel Aviv with our German choir and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra will remain an unforgettable memory for me. The compositional structure of the work, the choice of texts, and the interpretation of the texts are of overwhelming mastery. I congratulate Carus-Verlag most sincerely on their 50th anniversary. It has been a great honor for me to be able to write a book on the Brahms Requiem for Carus-Verlag.
Helmuth Rilling is a conductor, teacher and ambassador for Bach’s music throughout the world. He founded the Gächinger Kantorei in 1954, the Bach-Collegium Stuttgart in 1965, the Oregon Bach Festival in 1970, and the International Bach Academy Stuttgart in 1981, remaining its Artistic Director until 2012. As well as a deep involvement with the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, Rilling has also contributed to the rediscovery of Romantic choral music and has promoted contemporary music by commissioning new works.
Johannes Brahms. A German Requiem
Carus 24.086
Original version
Since its first complete performance in 1868 in the Cathedral of Bremen, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem (German Requiem) is, without question, one of the key works in the history of the oratorio. The reputation of the work is based not only on its unusually concentrated musical structure, but also on the original conception of the text.
Arrangement for chamber orchestra (J. Linckelmann)
Brahms conceived the original orchestral version of his Requiem for a choir with over 200 singers. Most performances of the work will be sung with far fewer singers, resulting in a clear imbalance between the larger orchestra and smaller choir..
Instrumental arrangement for piano for four hands
This edition is a purely instrumental arrangement by the composer with which the work can be performed alone, without vocal parts, on the piano in domestic music-making. The vocal parts are incorporated in such a way that they blend seamlessly into the piano writing, sometimes acquiring a different musical color when transposed to a different octave.
carus music, the Choir Coach
Brahms’ Deutsches Requiem is indisputably one of the key works in the history of oratorio. The choir, as the voice of the people, carries the musical action almost continuously. In his Requiem Brahms masterfully combines compositional techniques drawn from earlier centuries with what were then new harmonies, a combination which still presents challenges for choral singers today.
CD
“A blessing: the Kammerchor Stuttgart can shine with the complete range of its eloquence. Every pianissimo, every structural accent and also the intonation are first and foremost.”?
H. Rilling: Johannes Brahms. A German Requiem. An Introduction
Helmuth Rilling has performed Brahms’ German Requiem many times as a conductor. In this book, he draws on his intimate knowledge of the score, examining the question of what Brahms wanted to express with his work, and which means he used to achieve this.
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