Program Notes: Alto Rhapsody

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

The Boston Cecilia performed this piece at New England Conservatory's Jordan Hall in Boston on March 16, 2003.

Brahms composed his Rhapsody, Op. 53, in the autumn of 1869, drawing upon a difficult poem of Goethe's, Harzreise im Winter ("Winter Journey Through the Harz Mountains"). Of the poem's 88 lines, Brahms chose to set only the central part, one quarter of the whole. Goethe's poem was written after a 1777 visit to the Harz Mountains, where he met a correspondent of his, a misanthropic young fellow named Plessing, who had withdrawn from the world into the solitude of nature. Goethe's poem describes one who goes "off apart," praying that the Father of Love may have on his Psalter "a single tone perceptible to his ear," which might "revive his heart."

It seems odd that Brahms should choose such a darkly personal text to set to music as a wedding gift for Julie Schumann, the daughter of his dear friend Clara, but there can be little doubt that Goethe's poem spoke to him, in his own solitary life, with unusual directness, and he responded to it with shattering, personal music.

The orchestral introduction shivers in its chilly C-minor depiction of the winter scene, interrupted by the alto soloist — entering suddenly as if overheard in the middle of a thought — who notices the solitary wanderer. A central section, actually an aria, describes the one who, having been scorned, now scorns all in return. The harmonic and rhythmic agitation of this section yields magically at the entrance of the men's voices and a turn to a consoling C major and a warmly ardent melody praying for the reconciliation of the wanderer.

© 2004 Steven Ledbetter. All rights reserved.