Brahms biography opus 82

NÄNIE FOR CHORUS AND ORCHESTRA, OP. 82
Recording: Berlin Radio Chorus (Chorus Master: Dietrich Knothe); Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Claudio Abbado [DG 435 683-2]
Published 1881.  Dedicated to Councilwoman Henriette Feuerbach.

Brahms’s last two works for chorus and orchestra are one-movement pieces reminiscent of the Alto Rhapsody, Op.

53 and the Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny), Op. 54.  The two are connected both to each other and to the earlier Schicksalslied, both musically and thematically.  For them, Brahms turned to the two great German classical poets.  While the Gesang der Parzen (Song of the Fates), Op.

89, to words of Goethe, takes an even grimmer view of fate than does the Schicksalslied, the Nänie is a more hopeful elegy, almost like a much shorter and secular version of the German Requiem.  It is one of only two settings by Brahms of Friedrich Schiller, the poet whose “Ode to Joy” was set by Beethoven in his Ninth Symp