About 3 weeks ago, we played Brahm's German Requiem in the Filharmonija with Jan Hübner conducting and one of his choirs that he directs in Germany. The whole week of rehearsing, hanging out with Jan, and the two vocal soloists was great fun and musically exquisite. It was very intriguing to finally play this piece because I did a 10 page research paper comparing the Brahms, Verdi, and Berlioz requiems in my undergrad.
Time for a succinct fascinating music history lesson...
This paper, that I wrote, basically explains how the Brahms Requiem is one-of-a-kind when it comes to the genre of requiems. A quick overview of why:
1. Uses Text from Bible, rather than traditional Latin Requiem text
2. Was not commissioned to write it, Brahms wanted to
3. Is about hope for the non-deceased rather than a prayer for the dead
To read the full paper click here. BUT! Don't judge too hard because I was a sophomore in college when I wrote this paper ;)
However, I discovered more when we played the piece this time. There is quite a bit of controversy surrounding Brahms' true intentions with this Requiem. In the paper, I mentioned that Brahms was a religious man. However, after some further research, the overall agreement among scholars seems to be that Brahms grew up in a devout Lutheran family but when he left the home, he considered himself to basically be agnostic (somehow I still got an "A" on the paper :). Even with these views, he still chose to use the text of the Bible. Scholars have quotations from him saying that the piece is not supposed to be about Christ and the Christian story of salvation. He said he purposely left out John 3:16 and other scriptures mentioning Christ.
Despite Brahms' intentions to rid of this message in the piece, I would make an argument that the Christian message (the Gospel) actually still remains in the requiem. In brevity, this is because the scriptures that Brahms uses, he does so out of context from where they are in the Bible. If you read the chapters in the Bible that the scriptures come from (in the requiem), you'll find that they do point to/explain the Gospel. This is mostly because the whole Bible is about Christ. You can't make a new meaning for a text by quoting only pieces of it. If you want to know the exact examples on this, just send me a message.
Our second performance of the Brahms requiem was in Mostar, Bosnia, a city a couple hours southish of Sarajevo. Check out the photos in my previous post. Incredible scenery!
On my birthday two weeks ago, I bought a food processor/blender that was on sale to make peanut butter. By making my own peanut butter, I save around 2 KM per jar, so the blender actually pays itself off after about 12 jars (which I go through in about 2 months....hehehe). It's also much healthier for you this way, no additives. The PB tastes great!
I think I may have mentioned the Viasat History TV channel before. If so, I will talk about it again because it is that awesome. All they play are BBC and PBS documentaries. No commercials except brief ones for other Viasat programs. There is currently a series on called "Bible Hunters" that has been phenomenal! Holy crap, it's awesome (Haha...like Holy crap, like the Bible is Holy...but obviously not only crap b/c that....okay, you probably get the pun ;p)! On this show, they investigate scholars, archeologists, etc. who have gone searching for historical evidence of Bible events. I highly recommend watching this.
Halloween occurred last month and even though I don't participate in the festivities, it is an interesting cultural fact to know that my Bosnian friend said that Halloween was not existent basically in Bosnia until about 6 years ago. Since then, it's been catching on more...
We just finished playing the Balkan Opera "Ero s Onoga Svijeta" which was a good opera, but highly taxing for the bassoons. It is definitely worth checking it out on Youtube.
I am arriving soon in Zagreb, Croatia to meet my family and do some tourist "vaca-y" for the week :). Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the news!
Cao cao
Time for a succinct fascinating music history lesson...
This paper, that I wrote, basically explains how the Brahms Requiem is one-of-a-kind when it comes to the genre of requiems. A quick overview of why:
1. Uses Text from Bible, rather than traditional Latin Requiem text
2. Was not commissioned to write it, Brahms wanted to
3. Is about hope for the non-deceased rather than a prayer for the dead
To read the full paper click here. BUT! Don't judge too hard because I was a sophomore in college when I wrote this paper ;)
However, I discovered more when we played the piece this time. There is quite a bit of controversy surrounding Brahms' true intentions with this Requiem. In the paper, I mentioned that Brahms was a religious man. However, after some further research, the overall agreement among scholars seems to be that Brahms grew up in a devout Lutheran family but when he left the home, he considered himself to basically be agnostic (somehow I still got an "A" on the paper :). Even with these views, he still chose to use the text of the Bible. Scholars have quotations from him saying that the piece is not supposed to be about Christ and the Christian story of salvation. He said he purposely left out John 3:16 and other scriptures mentioning Christ.
Despite Brahms' intentions to rid of this message in the piece, I would make an argument that the Christian message (the Gospel) actually still remains in the requiem. In brevity, this is because the scriptures that Brahms uses, he does so out of context from where they are in the Bible. If you read the chapters in the Bible that the scriptures come from (in the requiem), you'll find that they do point to/explain the Gospel. This is mostly because the whole Bible is about Christ. You can't make a new meaning for a text by quoting only pieces of it. If you want to know the exact examples on this, just send me a message.
Our second performance of the Brahms requiem was in Mostar, Bosnia, a city a couple hours southish of Sarajevo. Check out the photos in my previous post. Incredible scenery!
On my birthday two weeks ago, I bought a food processor/blender that was on sale to make peanut butter. By making my own peanut butter, I save around 2 KM per jar, so the blender actually pays itself off after about 12 jars (which I go through in about 2 months....hehehe). It's also much healthier for you this way, no additives. The PB tastes great!
I think I may have mentioned the Viasat History TV channel before. If so, I will talk about it again because it is that awesome. All they play are BBC and PBS documentaries. No commercials except brief ones for other Viasat programs. There is currently a series on called "Bible Hunters" that has been phenomenal! Holy crap, it's awesome (Haha...like Holy crap, like the Bible is Holy...but obviously not only crap b/c that....okay, you probably get the pun ;p)! On this show, they investigate scholars, archeologists, etc. who have gone searching for historical evidence of Bible events. I highly recommend watching this.
Halloween occurred last month and even though I don't participate in the festivities, it is an interesting cultural fact to know that my Bosnian friend said that Halloween was not existent basically in Bosnia until about 6 years ago. Since then, it's been catching on more...
We just finished playing the Balkan Opera "Ero s Onoga Svijeta" which was a good opera, but highly taxing for the bassoons. It is definitely worth checking it out on Youtube.
I am arriving soon in Zagreb, Croatia to meet my family and do some tourist "vaca-y" for the week :). Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed the news!
Cao cao
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