Alto Rhapsody
The Rhapsody for alto, male chorus and orchestra, Op 53, standardly abbreviated as Alto Rhapsody, is a choral work by Johannes Brahms ( 1833-1897 ) on a text by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which was created in 1869.
Formation
In February 1869 witnessed Brahms ' cantata Rinaldo, Op 50, a work for solo voice, chorus and orchestra on a text by Goethe premiered. In the same year Brahms chose for another vocal work another text of this poet, this time the verses 5-7 of the Harz Journey in Winter. The bleak, scoring on Goethe's less accessible work describes template text with the opening words "But away, who is it? " A self- insulating loner, " misanthropy from the plethora of love potion " is.
There is broad agreement that Brahms a disappointed (but never clearly marked ) love for Clara Schumann's daughter Julie processed with this composition. The assumption draws on, among other things from a letter from Brahms on 28 August 1869 the publisher Fritz Simrock ( had the 24 -year-old Julie Schumann became engaged in July 1869 with an Italian count ): " Here I have a bridal song written for the Schumann Countess - but with fury I write this kind - with anger! How the heck are there! " The unusual title " Rhapsody " for an orchestra accompanied choral work Brahms borrowed the title of a piano song by Johann Friedrich Reichardt over a partially same excerpt.
The premiere took place on 3 March 1870 in Jena with the local Academic Choral Society under Ernst Naumann and the soloist Pauline Viardot -Garcia. This was preceded by a rehearsal in late fall 1869 in Karlsruhe. The Brahms circle of friends, including Clara Schumann and Theodor Billroth, was impressed and moved by the composition, which was made in the following years, particularly by the singer Amalie Joachim, the wife of Joseph Joachim, known.
The first edition was published in 1870 as Opus 53 in the publisher N. Simrock, Berlin.
Description of the work
Instrumentation and Duration
The Alto Rhapsody for alto solo set, 4 - part male choir (tenor I / II, Bass I / II) and orchestra. The orchestra consists of 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns and strings.
The performance time is about 12 to 15 minutes.
Music
Corresponding to the three verses set to music the composition is in three parts. The first stanza ( C minor ) is initiated by a short orchestral prelude ( Adagio ), which is dissonant accents and a descending line with sighing figures in the bassoons, cellos and basses, accompanied by tremolos in the violins and violas, determined. The supervening alto is guided expressive recitative. The second verse - also in C minor - is composed as a three-part aria. For the leadership of the solo part, as in the first stanza, extreme interval jumps up to the twelfth characteristic. In the third stanza occurs in accompaniment to the alto voice a hymn male choir added, according to the hopeful text in a type of intercession ( " Is on your psaltery, Father of love, a sound his ear loudly, so quicken his heart " ), a turn to the C major, in which the work closes conciliatory.