Unfortunately, Johannes Brahms is still portrayed as a Beethoven epigone: a Beethoven epigone of an exceptionally high level, but an epigone nonetheless. And that while Brahms was completely himself in his vocal music (an area in which Beethoven did not excel very much). His first public success involved a vocal work, Ein deutsches Requiem. The work was created in the 1860s in response to the deaths
… of both Schumann and Brahms' mother. Ein deutsches Requiem is unique because the work has nothing to do with the Catholic Mass for the Dead. In the traditional requiem the imagery of Jewish and early Christian apocalypticism had turned into a morbid lamentation in which the faithful were beaten with hell and damnation. Brahms was a brilliant text compiler in that regard: he avoided any reference to the Christian redemption drama, but precisely because of this he managed to revive some beautiful biblical images: the grass that withers, the flower that falls, the grain that descends into the earth, the weary workers who will cheer at the harvest, because 'their works follow them' ... It is not surprising that Brahms preferred to replace the word 'deutsch' in the title with 'Mensch'. (HJ) in the title would have preferred to be replaced by 'Mensch'. (HJ) in the title would have preferred to be replaced by 'Mensch'. (HJ)more
