Brahms: Choral Music (Alto Rhapsody) (Naxos: 8.572694) [CD]

Although Brahms conducted choirs and wrote choral music all his life, much of this work is not often performed live, with the exception of the German Requiem. Most of these short pieces have been frequently recorded, and this Naxos new recording of six Brahms works for chorus and orchestra offers an excellent introduction. The distinguished conductor Antoni Wit conducts the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra with preparation of the Warsaw Philharmonic Chorus by its longstanding director, Henryk Wojnarowski.

The six works range from early to late in Brahms' career. His style is apparent in them all. The works are serious and somber in character. This music is melodic but it is difficult to perform and requires concentration and repeated listening to appreciate. The performances by Wit and the Orchestra and Chorus are disciplined, controled and carefully rehearsed. This is a necessity for this music. Much as I love it, most of these works do not work well for amateur music-making. They also are not suitable for casual listening.

The most famous work on this CD, and the only one which uses is a soloist, is the Alto Rhapsody, opus 53, composed in 1869 and possibly autobiographical as Brahms was reflecting on a failed romance. There are many fabled recordings of this work, but I found contralto Ewa Wolak's performance here worthy and deeply moving. The text is three stanzas of a poem by Goethe, and Brahms' music works differently for each stanza. It moves from recitive to a passionate aria with long leaps in the vocal line to a concluding consolatory stanza with the soloist accompanied by a male chorus. Tempos vary substantially in performances of the Alto Rhapsody, and the reading here at 14:51 is on the slow side of the spectrum.

Of the purely choral works, Nanie, opus 82 is one of the most beautiful and least often performed due to its difficulty. Composed in 1881, Brahms set a poem by Schiller which celebrates the evanescent character of beauty. Brahms wrote the work for the death of a friend, the painter Anslem Feurerbach, one of whose works is on the CD cover. It is a work of almost unearthly beauty, peace and serenity in which music and text closely reinforce each other.

Written one year after Nanie, the Song of Fate, opus 89, is of an entirely different character. Setting a poem of Goethe's, this is a short, stormy jagged work which deals with the passing of human life by emphsizing its capricious, chancy and seemingly arbitrary character.

The Song of Destiny (Fate), opus 54, composed in 1871 to a poem by Holderlin also offers an apparently pessimistic view of human destiny. This is a heavily orchestrated work and as do many of the pieces included here makes great use of the tympani. The work begins quietly but reaches a loud and repeated anguished climax on a large chord in its middle section before fading away in resignation. This is a difficult piece and ambiguous in its portrayal of the human condition.

The remaining two works on the CD are early compositions and rather more lyrical and accessible than their companions. Brahms short and lilting setting of the Ave Maria, opus 12, dates from 1859. In that year, Brahms also composed his Funeral Hymnn, opus 13 to commemorate the death of Robert Schumann, This is a march-like piece, scored for lower winds without strings that was composed to be performed at gravesite. The work has the archaic feel of early music.

Keith Anderson wrote the liner notes for the CD and prepared the English translations of the texts. It has become a welcome rarity to see texts and translations. This CD is an excellent and welcome reading of Brahms' choral masterworks.

Total Time: 69:54

Robin Friedman

Most classical listeners will know Brahms for the great German Requiem, but he wrote for many combinations of voices and instruments; this disc features half a dozen of his shorter works for mixed chorus with full orchestral accompaniment. The selections tend to be on the somber side--the works with piano are often lighter--although an "Ave Maria" for women and orchestra is lilting and folk-like. Ewa Wolak takes the solo part in the famous Alto Rhapsody, confidently negotiating the wide intervals, and sounding at times a little like Janet Baker. I've always had a soft spot for "Nanie," with its elegant, almost languid fugal introduction. By contrast, the opening of "The Song of the Fates," which follows, is slashing and dramatic. Conductor Antoni Wit guides the assembled forces, getting some lovely soft singing from the big group. And--for once!--the booklet has all the texts, in both the original (mostly) German, and English translation.

Brahms's doleful choral works with orchestra evoke ambivalent responses, since at least two, the alto Rhapsody and Deutches Requiem, represent his genius in full flower. The rhapsody represented on disc by performances that far surpass this new budget release on Naxos. Although piecemeal, wit's conducting is assured enough, and caught in good sound, but his contralto soloist, Eva Wolak, is loud and unsubtle, failing to communicate the tenderness or inward sympathy of the narrator. If you like coarse, chesty singing, she certainly is no wallflower. The beautiful transition that ushers in the male chorus comes to nothing here, and the Polish choral force is ordinary. Classic recordings by Ferrier, Ludwig, and Baker rank many notches higher on all counts except recorded sound. .

Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny) Op. 54 has an ops number directly following the Alto Rhapsody, and it hangs on at the edges of the standard repertory, with greater popularity in Germany. I agree with the lead reviewer that Brahms's choral works require close, repeated attention. Few are immediately winning, and the fact that Schicksalslied lacks a soloist or any great melodic appeal, added to its inward melancholy, works against it. But here Brahms has rendered in a Romantic idiom the solemn reverence of the old masters, especially Scheutz and Bach, that he studied so closely. Wit and his Warsaw forces deliver a clean, flowing, respectful reading that doesn't really rival first-rate recordings like the nuanced one under Abbado with the Berliners (DG). More recently, John Eliot Gardiner got spectacular singing from his Monteverdi Choir that leaves all competitors in the dust.

Gardiner opens with a strikingly dramatic funeral march for chorus, winds, and timpani -- Begrabnigesang, Op. 13 -- that was the first effort of a brilliant 25-year-old to set chorus and orchestra together. I had never heard of it, much less listened to it, but Brahms has discovered the same stern, uplifting Protestant tone that would characterize the German Requiem. Wit's account is slower, more solemn, and a bit ordinary by comparison; it misses the underlying drama of death that haunted Brahms. The Ave Maria Op. 12 that came before Begrabnisgesang isn't a breakthrough work but a pleasant-sounding hymn for women's chorus that shows the young composer's talent nonetheless.

Wit's generous program of six choral works proceeds chronologically and ends with two pieces I've never encountered in the concert hall, Nanie Op. 82 and Gesang der Parzen Op. 89, both so fully mature that they bear close listening, and reward it. Nanie is a lementation for the dead, specifically a friend of Brahms's, and even though I wouldn't choose to sit and listen to an hour's worth of Brahms in sorrow, his intertwining voices and intense emotion here really do make one think of Scheutz and Bach. Wit's fully committed reading is one of the best things, and perhaps the very best, on the disc. Gardiner is again a direct rival, with better playing, singing, and sound. But all of his recent Brahms choral work, excepting the Requiem, come as fillers to his unlistenable (to me) HIP-style Brahms symphonies. One gets smoother, more assured performance style (non-HIP) in a choral collection on Decca with Blomstedt and the San Francisco Sym., but the chorus is distant and a little woolly.

Gesang der Parzen (Song of the Fates), based like the alto Rhapsody on Goethe, is derived from the poet's neoclassical drama, Iphigenia on Tauris. It is forceful and far more dramatized than the preceding pieces, especially in wit's sharply contoured reading, which bests Blomstedt's. His chorus, smaller and more intimate-sounding, is also better. Gardiner comes out first again, however, with even more drama and force. His Monteverdi Choir has risen to an all but unsurpassed level of ensemble, flexibility, and intonation. The fastest account is a striking one under Sinopoli with the Czech Phil., now decades old; it always suffered from thin, edgy sound.

On balance, Wit's collection has to be considered a good addition to the discography of Brahms choral works, and leaving aside Blomstedt, almost every rival since Sinopoli's erratic survey for DG consists of fillers for symphonies. Wit's two strongest readings are the Nanie and Gesang der Parzen, while there's not much to admire about the Alto Rhapsody and Schicksalslied unless you completely ignore past great recordings. My rating is an average, therefore.