{"id":226,"date":"2010-11-04T14:52:18","date_gmt":"2010-11-04T14:52:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/cantusfirmus\/?p=226"},"modified":"2010-11-04T14:52:19","modified_gmt":"2010-11-04T14:52:19","slug":"the-austro-german-connection-brahms-and-bruckner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/cantusfirmus\/2010\/11\/04\/the-austro-german-connection-brahms-and-bruckner\/","title":{"rendered":"The Austro-German Connection: Brahms and Bruckner"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week, the Cecilian Choir arrived at the Austro-German part of their programme; pieces by Brahms and Bruckner. Bruckner\u2019s Locus iste<\/em> is a hardy perennial, and gave the choir a chance to work on their vowel-shapes and sustained phrases. The third section is wonderfully chromatic and harmonically uncertain, \u2018irreprehensibilis ist,\u2019 and we strove to capture some of that hesitancy in both the dynamics as well as in the unfolding chromatic lines: there’s a tendency to want to crescendo<\/em> too soon, but holding back and only reaching mezzo-forte<\/em> before subsiding back to piano<\/em> for the reprise keeps the excitement of the passage.<\/p>\n

\"The

The Wanderer: Caspar David Friedrich<\/p><\/div>\n

From Latin text to German: Ach, arme Welt<\/em> by Brahms, and a chance to develop the linguistic skills of the choir by getting to grips with German. This chorale has some great colours to enhance the text \u2013 \u2018\u2019Du falsches Welt, du bist nicht wahr (You false world, you are not real) and \u2018\u2019Mit Weh und grossem Leiden (with pain and bitter anguish);\u2019\u2019 wonderful lines to sing in German. The most striking aspect of the piece is that, full of impassioned power and dynamics and crescendi, <\/em>at the last phrase \u2018hilf mir, Herr, zum Frieden (help me, Lord, to peace)\u2019\u2019 the piece ends with a diminuendo<\/em> and ends piano<\/em> on the final chord. After all the Sturm und Drang<\/em> of the rest of the piece, it\u2019s a great trick and creates a rapt ending.<\/p>\n

We left German Romanticism behind and ended by returning to French neo-Classicism to revisit the first part of the Poulenc that we\u2019d looked at last week. It\u2019s still a terrific piece: I’m delighted we’re learning it.<\/p>\n