Warum,
ist das Licht gegeben dem Mühseligen?
Brahms
Choral Works
Capella
Amsterdam, Daniel Reuss
Harmonia
Mundi HMC 902160 (70:08)
Nineteenth
century choral music has suffered in the modern era through no fault of its
own. The choral societies that sprung up across Europe, and for whom many of
the Romantic greats composed, are no longer the cultural and social force they
once were. Such choirs played a crucial role in Brahms’ career. Before his move
to Vienna he conducted the Hamburger Frauenchor, and later he was chorus master
of the Wiener Singakademie. Many short part-songs resulted from these
appointments. But choral music was also an important dimension of the composer’s
engagement with Renaissance and early Baroque music, documenting his research
in his early years, and his absorption of those styles later on.
The
selection of choral works here spans Brahms’ middle and late periods. The
composer’s most popular choral works, the Liebeslieder Waltzes are avoided in favour of generally more serious
works. The selection presented is not for completists. For example, it begins
with the first of the two op. 74 Motets, but the second is omitted (though the
liner note points out that 15 years separate them, no. 2 being composed first).
We hear Schicksalslied, but in
the arrangement for piano four hands rather than the orchestral original. And
in a selection entitled Drei Quartette, we hear selections from opp. 92 and
112. Everything else, though, is presented in complete sets, the Fünf Gesänge,
op. 104, Fest- und Gedenksprüche,
op. 109, and Brahms’ final choral work, the Drei Motetten, op. 110. That last
set is particularly evocative of the early Baroque, the liner note suggests Schütz
and his Venetian mentors. Bach is another important presence throughout these
works, with Lutheran chorale settings making regular appearances.
The whole
programme is presented as a single, uninterrupted flow of elegant choral sound.
A piano solo, the Intermezzo, op. 119/1, is included between two numbers, but
the mellow elegance of both the harmonies and the piano sound allow it to fit seamlessly
into the programme. The choir is quite large, about 30 singers, and the
richness of their tone is continually satisfying. Harmonia Mundi captures the
warmth and complexity of the choral sound well, and the church acoustic (of the
Waalse Kerk, Amsterdam) is suitably warm and involving. Documentation, as ever
from HM, is exemplary, with full texts and translations.
A satisfying
sampling, then, of Brahms’ still underappreciated mature choral output. The composer
may have had historical models at the front of his mind while composing most of
this music, but Daniel Reuss and his Amsterdam Choir ensure that we are offered
far more than just a history lesson.
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