5B JOHANNES BRAHMS – “SCHICKSALSLIED, OP.

54”

Yu Hang Tan

MUCM 542: Choral Literature II

February 20, 2020

Background

Following the successful premiere performances of the Ein deutsches Requiem in 1868,

Brahms visited his good friend Albert Dietrich in Wilhelmshaven, who arranged the Requiem’s

premiere. During his short stay at Wilhelmshaven, Brahms discovered a poem by Hölderlin

entitled Hyperions Schicksalslied or song of destiny from Hölderlin’s novel Hyperion.1 A

humanist with a deep appreciation for the literature of Greek antiquity and fascination for fate-

related texts (refer to Appendix 1) himself, Brahms was immediately gripped by the poem’s

theme: the contrasts between the easy lives of the “selige Genien” (blessed genii) and the

struggles of the mortals on earth2. In Dietrich’s own writing thirty years later, Dietrich described

“[Brahms], who was usually so lively, was quiet and grave […] He had found Hölderlin’s poems

in the bookcase and had been deeply impressed […]. He hurried back to Hamburg, in order to

give himself up to this work.”3

Unexpectedly, this 16-minute long piece, which is Brahms’s shortest choral-orchestral

work, took him three years to complete. He had no problem capturing the happy spirit of the first

and second verses that directly address the gods, the ‘blessed ones’ who wander ‘above in the

light’, and to illustrate the plight of the ‘suffering mortals’ in the third verse. However, the

unsparing conclusion of the poem (refer to Appendix 2 for full translation of the poem),

presented Brahms with a dilemma. He completed an initial setting with the third movement

being a complete restatement of the first.4 However, he felt that a full restatement of the warm

and hopeful first movement would nullify the harsh reality depicted in the second movement.5
1
George Bozarth, Walter Frisch, "Brahms, Johannes." Grove Music Online. 2001
2
Nicole Grimes. “Brahms’s Ascending Circle: Hölderlin, Schicksalslied and the Process of Recollection.”
Nineteenth - Century Music Review 11, no. 1 (June 1, 2014): 65.
3
Walter Niemann. Brahms. New York: Tudor Pub. Co., 1937, p. 87.
4
Bozarth, Walter, “Brahms”.

5
Grimes. “Brahms’s” Nineteenth - Century Music Review, p. 71
Unconvinced by his first draft of the third movement, Brahms turned his attention to the Alto

Rhapsody from 1869 to 1870.6 In 1871, a conductor friend of Brahms, Hermann Levi proposed

that instead of a full restatement of the first movement, a orchestral postlude that reintroduces

only the orchestral prelude should be used to conclude the piece. Convinced by Levi, Brahms

wrote the third movement with a richer instrumentation and transposed the material of the

introduction down to C major, completing the work in May 1871.7

Musical Analysis

By encapsulating the contrasting verses 1 and 2 (about the trouble-free lives of the gods

on high), and verse 3 (tormented existence of the mortals below) with an orchestral prelude and

postlude with the same material, Schicksalslied can be seen as a large binary form contained

within a cyclic frame.8 Section A comprises of verses 1 and 2, and it is set in E-flat major.

Something worth noting is that E-flat major is a key Brahms had used on only three occasions

before Schicksalslied: Variations in E-flat on a Theme by Schumann (a theme Schumann

composed shortly before his suicide attempt in 1854), Trio for Piano, Violin and Horn, op. 40

(the second movement was an elegy on the death of Brahms’s mother), and the fourth movement

of Ein deutsches Requiem – and all three of these works are associated with loss and

bereavement.9 While verses 1 and 2 in the section A are all about the worriless lives of the gods,

it is unfortunately an unattainable in reality, or what Hölderlin referred to as ‘aorgic’. Aorgic is a

concept of a naïve, simple life that represents nature prior to human intervention10. Therefore,

6
Bozarth, Frisch, “Brahms”, Grove Music Online
7
Symphony Silicon Valley. (n. d.) Program Notes: Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny), Opus 54 (1871). Symphony
Silicon Valley.
8
Bozarth, “Brahms”, Grove
9
Grimes. “Brahms’s Ascending Circle: Hölderlin, Schicksalslied and the Process of Recollection.” Nineteenth -
Century Music Review.
10
Violetta Waibel, “Hölderlin’s Idea of ‘Bildungstrieb’: A Model from Yesteryear?”, Educational Philosophy and
Theory 50, no. 6-7 (May 12, 2018): 640–651.
Brahms decision to begin Schicksalslied in E-flat major can be interpreted as an irony between

‘aorgic’ and the reality we live in, foreshadowing what is about to come in the section B.

Transitioning from section A (verse 1 and 2) to B (verse 3) was a twice repeated

diminished triads heard in the winds and horns (refer Appendix 3), separating the gods or the

‘aorgic’ from the reality and struggles of the mortals. Opening with unsettling tremolos in the

strings, Section B is violently agitated, illustrating the pains of the ‘suffering humans’. Setting to

C minor and marked Allegro tempo, section B is also the section in which the music is at its most

dissonant. At the apex of this section (measure 132, refer appendix 4), the chorus sings a B

diminished seventh chord in fortissimo.

Marked Adagio, the third movement was set to C major and returned from 3/4 to

common time. Although shifting tonality was nothing new by the time Schicksalslied was

composed, closing the piece with a key other than its opening was new in terms of Brahms’s

œuvre.11 Transposing the opening material from E-flat major to C major could be interpreted as

Brahms’s desire to relieve the gloom the text by shedding a ray of light over the whole. As with

his Ein deutsches Requiem, which was composed a year before this piece, his message seems to

be that hope and consolation for the living may be found here on earth.12

Performance challenges

The choral writing for Schicksalslied is mostly homophonic with two separate fugal

sections in measures 194-222 and 222-273. The choral parts are general well supported by the

accompaniment and mostly vocally doable with a few big and unexpected leaps. The phrases are

11
Grimes, “Brahms’s” Nineteenth - Century Music Review.
12
Pysh, Gregory. “A Conductor’s Guide to Choral/ Orchestral Repertoire.” The Choral Journal 58, no. 7 (February
1, 2018): 83–84; Symphony Silicon Valley. (n. d.) Program Notes: Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny), Opus 54
(1871). Symphony Silicon Valley; Grimes, “Brahms’s” Nineteenth - Century Music Review.
not particularly long. In general, the choral writing is conservative but expressive. The following

are some potential rehearsal and performance challenges/issues:

Unorthodox pitch sequences

There are several big leaps in the choral parts that require special attention for the

negotiation of registration to make sure that the upward leaps do not sound pushed or too dark

(too much chest voice for the high note) and singers do not sing the low note in downward leaps

with too much force. The following are some pitch sequences (bigger than major 6th) that could

pose challenge to the choir:

 m. 31 (Alto): E-flat to high D-flat leap

 m. 36 (Soprano): E-flat to high D-flat leap

 m. 49 (Tenor): E-flat to E-flat octave leap

 m. 113-125 (all voice parts): frequent leaps

 m. 222-278 (all voice parts): frequent leaps

 m. 316 (Soprano): A5 to A4 leap. Make sure sopranos do not dump on the low

note. Remind soprano to brighten the low note

Balance issues

Dynamic levels in this piece in most of the time correlate to the natural projection level of

its respective tessitura. In case of top- or bottom-heavy choirs, the following section may require

some special attention and potentially re-distribution of singers to ensure desired balance:

 m. 52: Potential balance issue due to sopranos and altos on the lower end of their

tessitura while tenors and basses are at their passagio.

 m. 80 & 132: May need more altos, tenors and basses to balance out the high A

sung in the soprano part. Consider moving some of the sopranos down to alto.
  m. 156 (Soprano and alto): The big downward leap from m. 155 to 156 in the

upper voice might affect the intelligibility of the soprano and alto part in measure

156. Remind the upper voices to brighten their vowels and keep tongues forward.

Hemiolas

In an effort to elicit an effect of gasping for breath, Brahms inserted a series of hemiolas

that are spaced out with quarter rests and staccatos over the text “Wasser von Klippe zu Kluppe

geworfen” in measures 146 to 152 (see Appendix 5), and 305 to 312 (See Appendix 5)13. Remind

choir to feel the long lines and include the quarter rests as part of the phrase to avoid making the

individual notes sounding overly clipped and chopped up.

Other potential performance issues

For conductors with choirs under 20 singers and with young voices should program this

piece knowing that although the choral writing of this piece is generally approachable, the piece

still calls for mature or trained voices, capable of producing wide range of pitches, dynamics and

expressions. Programming this piece for small choirs with untrained voice could lead to over

singing and strained voices in effort to produce a full and rich (not dark) Romantic, Brahmsian

tone. Tempo in this piece should be elastic and rubato could be used to reflect the expressive

nuances of text. However, such fluctuation should be limited to one degree within phrases to

avoid over-romanticizing the piece.

13
Michael Steinberg, Choral Masterworks : a Listener’s Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Bibliography

“A Conductor’s Guide to Nineteenth-Century Choral-Orchestral Works.” Reference and

Research Book News 23, no. 2 (May 1, 2008).
http://search.proquest.com/docview/199705916/.

Bozarth, George S., and Walter Frisch. "Brahms, Johannes." Grove Music Online. 2001;
https://www-oxfordmusiconline-
com.libproxy1.usc.edu/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo
-9781561592630-e-0000051879.

Daverio, John. "The "Wechsel Der Töne" in Brahms's "Schicksalslied"." Journal of the
American Musicological Society 46, no. 1 (1993): 84-113. doi:10.2307/831806.

Grimes, Nicole. “Brahms’s Ascending Circle: Hölderlin, Schicksalslied and the Process of
Recollection.” Nineteenth - Century Music Review 11, no. 1 (June 1, 2014): 57–92.
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1550986802/.

Grimes, Nicole. Brahms’s Elegies : the Poetics of Loss in Nineteenth-Century German Culture
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

Niemann, Walter. Brahms. New York: Tudor Pub. Co., 1937.

Pysh, Gregory. “A Conductor’s Guide to Choral/ Orchestral Repertoire.” The Choral Journal 58,
no. 7 (February 1, 2018): 83–84. http://search.proquest.com/docview/2012832155/.

Steinberg, Michael. Choral Masterworks : a Listener’s Guide Oxford: Oxford University Press,
2005.

Symphony Silicon Valley. (n. d.) Program Notes: Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny), Opus 54
(1871). Symphony Silicon Valley.
https://www.symphonysiliconvalley.org/concerts.php?pagecontID=56&showID=54

Waibel, Violetta L. “Hölderlin’s Idea of ‘Bildungstrieb’: A Model from Yesteryear?”

Educational Philosophy and Theory 50, no. 6-7 (May 12, 2018): 640–651.
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00131857.2017.1373346.
Appendix A

A copy of Brahms’s annotation to Hölderlin’s poem ‘An die Parzen’ as found in his copy of
Friedrich Hölderlin, Sämmtlich Werke. This book is now housed in the Archive of the
Gesellschaft der Musikfreude in Vienna. In this annotation, it can be seen that Brahms underlined
certain words and, at some points, even particular letters in the poem.

Translation:

To the Fates

One summer only grant me, you powerful Fates,

And one more autumn only for mellow song,
So that more willingly, replete with
Music’s late sweetness, my heart may die then.

The soul in life denied its god-given right

Down there in Orcus also will find no peace;
But when what’s holy, dear to me, the
Poem’s accomplished, my art perfected,

Then welcome, silence, welcome cold world of shades!

I will be content, though here I must leave my lyre
And songless travel down; for one I
Live like the gods, and no more is needed.
Appendix 2

Translation of the Hölderlin’s Hyperions Schicksalslied. Translation by Michael Hamburger,

retrieved from Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
https://cso.org/uploadedFiles/1_Tickets_and_Events/Program_Notes/ProgramNotes_Cherubini_
Requiem.pdf

Original text (Friedrich Hölderlin) Translation (Michael Hamburger)

Ihr wandelt droben im Licht You walk above in the light,

Auf weichem Boden selige Genien! Weightless tread a soft floor, blessed genii!
Glänzende Götterlüfte Radiant the gods’ mild breezes
Rühren Euch leicht, Gently play on you
Wie die Finger der Künstlerin As the girl artist’s fingers
Heilige Saiten. On holy strings.

Schicksallos, wie der Schlafende Fateless the Heavenly breathe

Säugling, atmen die Himmlischen; Like an unweaned infant asleep;
Keusch bewahrt, Chastely preserved
In bescheidener Knospe In modest bud
Blühet ewig For ever their minds
Ihnen der Geist, Are in flower,
Und die seligen Augen And their blissful eyes
Blicken in stiller Eternally tranquil gaze,
Ewiger Klarheit Eternally clear.

Doch uns ist gegeben But we are fated

Auf keiner Stätte zu ruh’n; To find no foothold, no rest,
Es schwinden, es fallen And suffering mortals
Die leidenden Menschen Dwindle and fall
Blindlings von einer Headlong from one
Stunde zur andern, Hour to the next,
Wie Wasser von Klippe Hurled like water
Zu Klippe geworfen From ledge to ledge
Jahrlang in's Ungewisse hinab. Downward for years
To the vague abyss.
Appendix 3

Measure 102 and 103 showing two diminished chords preceding the section B in the winds and
horns section.
Appendix 4

The chorus sings a B diminished seventh chord at measure 132 at fortissimo.

Appendix 5

Hemiolas in measures 146 to 152, and 305 to 312 spaced out with quarter rests and staccatos.