Although the title of Brahms’ great work is Ein deutsches Requiem, the composer later felt he should have called it just a Human Requiem. It is very human in its conception. Composed around 1865-6, Brahms chose texts from the Bible which are less about mourning the dead and more about comforting the living left behind. In all of its seven sections, it talks of patience and hope, how blessed are the dead to be with the Lord, that those left behind can be consoled by the thought that they will meet again.
These beliefs are mirrored in the music Brahms composed for the texts and he always considered the Requiem to be his masterpiece.
It is a masterpiece. It is comforting. It soothes the frantic soul and eases the pain of grief for those who hear it.
Saturday night, at a nearly full St. James Cathedral, Seattle Pro Music, with an orchestra and two soloists, performed the Requiem, conducted by its artistic director Karen P. Thomas. As always with this group, the result was technically excellent and musically thoughtful, with balance between the singers themselves and with the orchestra. The Requiem is largely for chorus, but in three of the sections, solo voices join in.
The young soprano Alexandra Picard, currently undertaking her doctorate in vocal performance at the University of Washington, let her voice fill the cathedral and soar above the small accompanying choir in “Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit” (“You now have sorrow”) which ends “I will console, as one is consoled by his mother.” It’s a very high role which Picard sang pitch-perfect.
Bass-baritone Charles Robert Austin used his strong rich voice in the prayer “Herr, Lehre doch mich” (“O Lord, You have shown me my end”), with the full chorus, and again with them in the dramatic “Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt,” (“For we have here no continuing city”), which heralds the rising of the dead to the sound of trumpets, when death is swallowed up in victory.
This section ranges from thrilling drama sounding like the heavens opening and splitting the temple to complete exuberance to prayerful pauses. One would think this to be the end, but Brahms creates one more chorus coming almost full circle back to the beginning, from “Blessed are they that mourn” at the start, to “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord” at the end.
The Requiem uplifts and moves the spirit, as it did in this performance by this stellar group and an excellent orchestra with an insightful conductor. My only quibble might be that the interpretation was almost too robust in places, being after all a Requiem for the dead in which we may be comforted, but are not necessarily jumping for joy.
Seattle Pro Musica’s performances of the Requiem this weekend were dedicated to the memory of Peter Hallock, long time organist and choirmaster at St. Mark’s Cathedral who died April 27th aged 89.
