CANCELLED: Symphoniker Hamburg / Europa Chor Akademie / Joshard Daus

Choral music by Johannes Brahms is seldom heard in concert. More’s the pity: in these works, the composer is surprisingly open about matters of the heart. The »Alto Rhapsody« – based on Goethe’s text »Harzreise im Winter« – is one such piece. In Summer 1869, Brahms had fallen in love with Julie Schumann, the third daughter of Clara Schumann. But the two of them didn’t manage to organise a tête-à-tête: the reserved Brahms failed to share even with his best friend Clara that the unsuspecting Julie was soon to be married to a count. Brahms transported his strong feelings for the young woman into this setting of Goethe’s Sturm-und-Drang poem.

»Nänie« – originally a lament from ancient Rome – transforms the pain of love into an ode to art as a noble source of solace. The song is based on a text by Friedrich Schiller. And »Gesang der Parzen« (Song of the Fates, from Goethe’s »Iphigenie auf Tauris«) focuses on the gods and the way they determine our human lives as the whim takes them.

These three secular choral works by Brahms are juxtaposed with a sacred work of French provenance. In 1961 Francis Poulenc wrote a piece for the foundation set up by the legendary music patron, conductor and double-bass player Serge Koussevitzky. Poulenc’s »Gloria« opens with imposing church pomp: full fortissimo chords create the impression that one is sitting in ¬Westminster Abbey during a royal wedding ceremony!