Abtei im Eichwald - Caspar David Friedrich (Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin).

It’s good to mourn

‘Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.’ So begins Brahms’ Deutsches Requiem, which is to be performed by the Battle Choral Society at Christ Church, St Leonards, this Saturday. HOT’s Chris Cormack argues that it is important for our spiritual and emotional well-being to confront the transitory nature of life sometimes.

Eduard Hanslick, who reviewed the first performance of Brahms’ major work in 1867 in a Vienna newspaper, wrote: “Since the masses for the dead and mourning cantatas of our classical composers, the shadow of death and the seriousness of loss have scarcely been presented in music with such power. The harmonic and contrapuntal art which Brahms learnt in the school of Bach is inspired …” What better than to use this piece to commemorate the fallen on the 100th anniversary of  the outbreak of the Great War?

According to music historian Friedhelm Krummacher, Brahms regarded the bible as a ’menschliches Buch… ein Dokument tiefer menschlicher Sehnsüchte und hoher ethnischer Gesinnung,’ – not a dogmatic interpretation of religious commandments, but a cultural and emotional repository of views and values. For the Requiem, Brahms ignored the catholic liturgy and chose excerpts from both the Old and New Testaments in Lutheran translation, as well as from the Apocrypha; there was no specific mention of Jesus, nor even of  final redemption at the hands of God. Instead he focused on the most human sentiments which surround the death of a loved one; could it be Brahms sought out the texts that gave him most comfort in his own grief?

The death in 1857 of his  best friend and mentor, fellow composer Robert Schumann, first led Brahms towards the concept of a requiem and he lost his mother three years before finishing the Requiem. Who cannot be moved and find motherly solace in the words sung by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in the fifth part?

5. Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit;                       You are sad now:
aber ich will euch wieder sehen,                but I will see you again,
und euer Herz soll sich freuen,                   and your heart shall rejoice,
und eure Freude soll niemand                    and your joy no man will take from you       von euch nehmen. 

(Chor: Ich will euch trösten,                        (Choir: I will  comfort you
wie einen seine Mutter tröstet.)                  like one comforted by his mother.)

Siehet mich an: Ich habe eine kleine Zeit Look on me: for a short time
Mühe und Arbeit gehabt                              I have had sorrow and labour
und habe großen Trost gefunden.              and have found great comfort.
ich will euch wieder sehen…                        I will see you again…

John 16:22,
Ecclesiasticus 51:27, Isaiah 66:13

In the third part, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau can offer, strangely, comfort in words that proclaim that there is something much greater than our measly life on earth, without giving away what it is:

Herr, lehre doch mich,                                  Lord, help me understand
daß ein Ende mit mir haben muß,             That my life must come to an end,
und mein Leben ein Ziel hat,                       That my life has a purpose,
und ich davon muß.                                       but I must leave (this fleeting life).

Siehe, meine Tage sind                                Understand, my days are
einer Hand breit vor dir,                            as a handbreadth before Thee,
und mein Leben ist wie nichts vor dir.     and my life is as nothing before Thee.
Ach wie gar nichts sind alle Menschen,    Alas, as nothing are all people,
die doch so sicher leben.                              who live with such certainty (about what
it all means?).

Sie gehen daher wie ein Schemen,          They are therefore like a shadow,
und machen ihnen viel vergebliche         and go about vainly in disquiet;
Unruhe;
sie sammeln und wissen nicht                  they collect riches, and do not know
wer es kriegen wird.                                  who will benefit.
Nun Herr, wess soll ich mich trösten?    Now, Lord, how can I console myself?
Ich hoffe auf dich.                                       My hope is in Thee.

Der Gerechten Seelen sind in Gottes      Righteous souls are in God’s hand
Hand und keine Qual rühret sie an.       and no torment shall stir them.

It has been a wonder to me that I so enjoy singing church choral music, even though I am agnostic, verging on the atheistic. Music contains deeper truths that words cannot express,  it reaches out to the deepest emotions and feeds the soul.

Terence Ayebare, bass soloist.

Battle Choral Society will begin the evening by performing Sir Edward Elgar’s For the Fallen from his Spirit of England suite. The words were written by Laurence Binyon and set to music by Elgar. The lines “They shall grow not old as we that are left grow old/ Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn /at the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them”  have become synonymous with Remembrance.

The orchestra will play The Banks of Green Willow written by George Butterworth in 1913. Butterworth died on the Somme and was posthumously awarded the Military Cross. His body was never found and the much loved work became an anthem for ‘unknown soldiers’. This was all the more tragic as he had destroyed many

Jessica Leschnikoff, soprano soloist

of his music manuscripts in 1914, before going to war. Green Willow owes something to a folk song collected by Vaughn Williams and evokes an age of rural peace and prosperity as existed in Edwardian England before the War.

Dedicated to ‘The Fallen of All Nations’ , this concert is  at 7.30pm on Saturday 17 May at Christ Church, Silchester Road, St Leonards-on-Sea, TN37 6GL . Tickets are £15 each and available online, from Raggs Boutique, 20 High Street, Battle, The Little Larder, 39 Norman Road, St. Leonards, or by telephone 01424 870862 or 845219.

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