Concert Band - Level 4 - Digital Download

SKU: A0.942434

Arranged by Brock Lupton. Romantic Period. Score and parts. 84 pages. Brock Lupton #6879051. Published by Brock Lupton (A0.942434).

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 Schumann’s 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, Clara’s daughter.

In 1869, Brahms spent the summer near the Schumann’s 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 Goethe’s Harzreise. . . He called it his bridal song. This piece seems to me neither more nor less than the expression of his own heart’s anguish. If only he would for once speak so tenderly! This piece is of course the dark and emotional Alto Rhapsody.

Goethe’s 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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