Johannes Brahms' Alto Rhapsody, for contralto, male chorus, and orchestra, is a setting of three central stanzas (out of a total of 12) from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's Winter Journey to the Harz Mountains. The text, with its metaphysical portrayal of a misanthropic soul driven to find spiritual nourishment and throw off the shackles of suffering, has strong parallels in Brahms's own life and character.
The Alto Rhapsody was written in 1869 as a wedding gift for Robert and Clara Schumann's daughter, Julie. Brahms scholars have long speculated that the composer may have had romantic feelings for Julie, which he may have incorporated into the text and music of the Alto Rhapsody. It was a hopeless infatuation, for Julie was some 20 years Brahms's junior and not at all interested in the older man, whom she saw more as a father figure (there may be a reference to Brahms's own feelings in the second stanza). Julie lived in the south with friends of her mother's because her health was fragile. There she met Count Vittorio Amadeo Radicati di Marmorito, whom she married in 1869. Brahms was the best man at the wedding. Julie died in 1872, three years into her marriage, at the birth of her third child.
The work is in three sections: the first two, in a chromatically dense and wandering C minor, are for soloist and orchestra and describe the pain of the misanthropic wanderer. The declamatory opening sets the physical scene, man alone in the midst of threatening nature, with nothing but contempt for his fellow humans. The second section is more lyrical - an aria in all but name - yet full of self-doubt. With a gentle, almost imperceptible ascent to the major and an extension of phrase lengths, the final section brings in the male chorus, which joins the soloist in a plea to a heavenly spirit for relief from the wanderer's pain. This leads to a vision of at least a chance for peace and revival of the spirit through music.
The text Brahms set is:
Aber abseits wer ist's?
Im Gebüsch verliert sich sein Pfad;
hinter ihm schlagen die Sträuche zusammen,
das Gras steht wieder auf,
die Öde verschlingt ihn.
Ach, wer heilet die Schmerzen
dess, dem Balsam zu Gift ward?
Der sich Menschenhaß
aus der Fülle der Liebe trank!
Erst verachtet, nun ein Verächter,
zehrt er heimlich auf
seinen eigenen Wert
In ungenügender Selbstsucht.
Ist auf deinem Psalter,
Vater der Liebe, ein Ton
seinem Ohre vernehmlich,
so erquicke sein Herz!
Öffne den umwölkten Blick
über die tausend Quellen
neben dem Durstenden
in der Wüste!
(English translation)
But who is that apart?
His path disappears in the bushes;
behind him the branches spring together;
the grass stands up again;
the wasteland engulfs him.
Ah, who heals the pains
of him for whom balsam turned to poison?
Who drank hatred of man
from the abundance of love?
First scorned, now a scorner,
he secretly feeds on
his own merit,
in unsatisfying egotism.
If there is on your psaltery,
Father of love, one note
his ear can hear,
then refresh his heart!
Open his clouded gaze
to the thousand springs
next to him who thirsts
in the wilderness!
Listen to: hr-Sinfonieorchester (Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra) ∙ Collegium Vocale Gent ∙ Ann Hallenberg, Mezzosopran ∙ Philippe Herreweghe, Dirigent