Pamphlet Nr. 33 for 18.12. / 19.12. / 20.12.2009
by Helge Jung (Translation: Stewart Spencer)
This is not the first time that music by Sebastian Currier has been performed in the Philharmonie. In March 2004, his Night Time for violin and harp formed part of a chamber recital; in October 2005 the orchestra devoted an entire concert to his work; and a year later Marie-Pierre Langlamet and the Oriol Ensemble gave the world premiere of Broken Minuets. This evening's piece is also a world premiere, having been commissioned by the Stiftung Berliner Philharmoniker. Common to all these performances is Marie-Pierre Langlamet. She and Currier have known each other for more than twenty years, although it was not until 1998 that we find the first trace of a harp in Currier's work-list. This was the date of Night Time. In Remix (2005), the harp was part of an ensemble involving no fewer than ten players, while Crossfade, also written in 2005, is a dialogue for two harps. Dating from 2006, Broken Minuets may be described as a mini-concerto for string orchestra. Finally, in Traces, the harp is raised to the level of a soloist at the very heart of a full symphony orchestra.
Reading through the score and listening to it in advance of its first performance, one can identify several elements typical of Currier's earlier work: first, there is the basically lyrical mood and, in contrast to it, a kind of carefree recklessness; then there is a bright, almost impressionistic atmosphere often based on whole-tone harmonies; and finally there is the eminently accessible melodic writing constructed around diatonic intervals. This repackaging of familiar elements invites us to interpret the work's title as a search for forensic evidence. Moreover, when the piece is compared to Night Time, striking points of convergence emerge. Night Time, too, is a five-movement work, the first, third and fifth movements, with their twilight atmosphere, being clearly contrasted with the other two, which are notable for their changing tempos and their greater rhythmic and dynamic intensity. In the present piece, the three lyrical movements are headed "Fragmented", "Resonant" and "Distant". ("Fragmented" was also the heading of the fourth movement of the piano quintet Static of 2003.) All three are not only related in terms of their character and thematic language, they also form part of a climactic structure that culminates in the fifth and final movement. The musical material that had been fragmented in the opening movement acquires a full-toned resonance in the middle movement, before being recalled in the final movement as something distant and reserved. Diametrically opposed to these three movements are the second and fourth, headed, respectively, "Angular" and "Racing". Here, too, there is an increase in tension reflected in the adjectives chosen by the composer. They, too, have precedents in his output in both Broken Minuets and Night Time. A second meaning of "Traces" is a vestigial amount of something, and it may well be this alternative reading that brings us closer to the work's fundamental character. After all, one of the concerto's most striking qualities is the spareness of its textures, coupled with the composer's ability to use such economical resources to create music that is so full of tension and so instantly affecting. The conductor Hugh Wolff, who has been familiar with Currier's work since he gave the first performance of Microsymph in 1997, undoubtedly hit the nail on the head when he called this music "witty, mischievous and ironic", adding that it is "music that smiles at its audience".
The title makes it clear to us and the sung words from the Bible confirm that this Requiem is not a Mass for the Dead. It differs not only formally from the Requiems of the Roman Catholic tradition, it also, and above all, differs from them in terms of its content. Brahms's interest is not in the dead but in their grieving survivors. The death we must fear is not our own but that of the people we lose. It is at this point that the words of the opening section begin, words taken from Christ's Sermon on the Mount: "Blessed are they that mourn." This same music also brings the work to an end, albeit with different words, "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord", taken from the Book of Revelations. In each case the emphasis is on the word "blessed", thus forging a link between the beginning and end of the work and providing it with its overall structure. To be blessed is to sense the presence of God. That is the promise that lay close to Brahms's heart.
The opening movement strikes a note of gentle consolation, offering listeners the calm certainty that they will find comfort. Based on a pedal point on F, it resembles nothing so much as the beating of a human heart. The uplift that comes at the line "Come again with rejoicing" is underlined by the shift to the submediant, D flat major, which is also retained in the recapitulation, before the home key of F major is restored as the movement dies gently away. The opening of the second movement is wan and lifeless, contralto, tenor and bass entering in unison in B flat minor and introducing the theme of a powerful passacaglia: "For all flesh is as grass." But the funeral procession gains an increasingly clement aspect, ending in "joy and gladness".
Not until the third movement is the personal pronoun "I" first heard at the words "Lord, make me to know mine end". Brahms uses the occasion to introduce the baritone soloist. This is also one of the few passages in which the choir on which huge demands are otherwise placed is allowed a moment's respite. But the moment of rest soon passes, for in the following chorale it takes up the soloist's words. Soloist and chorus continue to engage in dialogue until a sudden cry of anguish alters the scene and the singers are again made aware of the futility of human endeavour. This movement ends with an impressive, broadly flowing fugue ("But the souls of the righteous").
In their gestural language and pensive, contemplative atmosphere, the fourth and fifth movements recall Brahms's lieder, so it is unsurprising that at the line "And ye therefore now have sorrow" the soprano soloist takes centre stage. After this idyll, the drama of the sixth movement, with its vision of the Last Judgement, is all the more compelling. The struggle is depicted with bitter coldness, and yet it leads not to damnation but to a sense of triumph. At the word "victory" Brahms introduces an emphatic final cadence, the overwhelming effect of the C major climax comparable to the one achieved by Haydn at the word "light" in The Creation. Once again, a fugue brings this movement to an end. Brahms was fully aware of his debt to tradition and he duly observes the expected Abgesang, or aftersong, and the reminiscence of the beginning, both of which leave their mark on this final section of the work, the musical argument of which is resolved in a consolatory F major tonality.
In his choice of passages from the Bible, Brahms consciously avoids all reference to Christ the Redeemer. In this respect his religious thinking reflects the liberal Protestantism of a writer like Friedrich Schleiermacher, for whom the connection between sin and death was no longer as inevitable as it once had been. In turn, this means that death may be seen not as a fall from grace but as an integral part of Creation. Brahms had no need of Christ's sacrifice. Death affects him as an existential dilemma that cannot be resolved by any soteriological construct. He wants to face God as his Creator, not as his judge. This is one of the reasons why his German Requiem offers its listeners such abiding comfort - even those of us who do not yet have cause to grieve.
