A German Requiem

Well, with Brahms, it literally started in the womb.

When my mother was carrying me, my dad was getting his master's at Westminster Choir College, and that was the year Westminster Choir, which my mom sang in, did the Brahms Requiem with Bruno Walter.

Oh no, really?

There's a very famous recording of that.

It, it is just lovely because there's just, you know, this rhythmic pitter-patter and if we're sitting out there, it's a nice place to sit and enjoy music.

And Steven had come over and we put on, it was a recorded concert that I had sung in of the Brahms Requiem, which I think Steven had studied by that point, and he may have sung parts of it in college.

And he kind of laid down on the floor of the porch and just kind of listened to the rain and, and the music, and I just kind of sat there and listened to the music.

And we listened to the whole thing, and it was just a very, very special thing to do because by that time he had learned a lot about how music is put together, and he had participated in some very high-level performances.

I wanted to ask you, why didn't Brahms write anything for contrabassoon? You're, you're not in this e-encore that we're gonna hear in just a moment.

Not, not in the encore, but he wrote some wonderful parts in the symphonies and in the Deutsches Requiem and of course his Academic Festival Overture.

Some wonderful things he wrote for us, but not the Hungarian Dances.

[laughs]

Yet more, the springs of beauty are not within itself alone, nor even in genius alone, but often in things without.

Brahms wrote his Deutsches Requiem not only because he was a great artist, but also because he was a good German.

And in Nietzsche there are times when the divine afflatus takes a back seat and the spirochetae have the floor.

Major Spingarn himself seems to harbor some sense of this limitation on his doctrine.

Yet more, the springs of beauty are not within itself alone, nor even in genius alone, but often in things without.

Brahms wrote his Deutsches Requiem not only because he was a great artist, but also because he was a good German.

And in Nietzsche there are times when the divine afflatus takes a back seat, and the spirochetae have the floor.

Major Spingarn himself seems to harbor some sense of this limitation on his doctrine.

Yet more, the springs of beauty are not within itself alone, nor even in genius alone, but often in things without.

Brahms wrote his Deutsches Requiem not only because he was a great artist, but also because he was a good German.

And in Nietzsche, there are times when the divine afflatus takes a back seat, and the spirochetae have the floor.

Major Spingarn himself seems to harbor some sense of this limitation on his doctrine.

I did see a couple of bewildered husbands drifting around last night looking a little bit shell-shocked, but there is something to shop for for them as well as for you.

Okay, what else have we got for you? Well, for classical music fans, the Cape Town Chamber Choir will be performing Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem, uh, tomorrow afternoon at the San Martini Church in Long Street, and that's a very significant and appropriate piece.

Uh, Ein deutsches Requiem, a German Requiem.

Uh, why is it significant? Well, San Martini's is celebrating its one hundred and sixty-fifth anniversary year this year, and of course, it has been very significant to the German immigrant community in Cape Town during that time.

The show is at four o'clock tomorrow afternoon.

Yet more, the springs of beauty are not within itself alone, nor even in genius alone, but often in things without.

Brahms wrote his Deutsches Requiem not only because he was a great artist, but also because he was a good German.

And in Nietzsche there are times when the divine afflatus takes a back seat, and the spirochetae have the floor.

Major Spingarn himself seems to harbor some sense of this limitation on his doctrine.