The Alto Rhapsody: Psychology, Intertextuality, and Brahms's Artistic Development.(Critical Essay)

I

Almost everyone counts the Alto Rhapsody, op. 53, among Brahms's most moving and successful works. It received considerable attention during the Brahms year, 1983, which witnessed the publication of a fine facsimile edition of the autograph as well as several analytical and interpretative essays.(1) And of course there are extended discussions of it in general works such as Siegfried Kross's 1958 monograph on Brahms's choral music.(2) Nevertheless, the Rhapsody does not loom large in overall accounts of Brahms's career, especially in comparison to the more or less contemporaneous German Requiem and First Symphony.(3) My thesis is that, notwithstanding its relatively modest dimensions and slightly ambiguous generic status, the Rhapsody can play a larger role in our reception of his music. This is so, not merely because of its quality (which nobody disputes), or merely because of its supposed status as a rare "confessional" statement on Brahms's part regarding (take your pick) his feelings of loneliness or his unrequited love for Julie Schumann.(4) Rather, I will argue that the Rhapsody played a crucial and hitherto underappreciated role in Brahms's artistic development.

The customary interpretation is that Brahms, following his "first maturity" of large-scale chamber works during the first half of the 1860s, turned to

vocal music both sacred and secular, notably choral works: the German Requiem, premiered in 1868, as well as the Alto Rhapsody, the Song of Destiny, the Song of Triumph, and Rinaldo, all completed between 1868 and 1871.(5) Thereafter, he resumed instrumental composition, completing a number of works that he had begun earlier (in some cases much earlier): the string quartets op. 51, the Piano Quartet in C Minor, op. 60, and the First Symphony; he also composed entirely new works, notably the Haydn Variations. Most writers have taken genre as the primary determinant and have explicitly or implicitly treated this ten-year span as comprising two separate subperiods, a choral half decade (ca. 1866-71) and an instrumental one (ca. 1871-76). The latter is seen, often in unmediatedly teleological fashion, as having culminated in the First Symphony.(6) (In some accounts, this point of culmination is seen as comprising both the First and the Second Symphonies; this does not affect the larger issue.)(7) I will argue instead that the entire span can be understood as a single period; that, although this period indeed ends with the First Symphony, that work is not a culmination; and that the Rhapsody proved more fruitful than the symphony for Brahms's further development as a composer.

Following a conspectus of the Rhapsody's construction and meaning, I will set the stage for this argument (presented in sec. IV) by exploring two intertextual aspects of the work: its psychological progression from C minor to C major (sec. II) and its topical and motivic relations with music dramas by Wagner and with other works by Brahms himself (sec. III).

The Rhapsody is outwardly straightforward in construction. The text, as is well known, consists of three stanzas (nos. 5-7) from Goethe's Harzreise im Winter (see fig. 2.1). These comprise, first, vivid images of the misanthrope lost in the wilderness; second, a psychological depiction of his misery, loneliness, and selfishness; and, finally, a twofold prayer to the "Father of Love": that the unfortunate one be granted a pleasing melody that will "refresh" or "restore" (erquicke) his heart and that his senses be opened to the "thousand springs" of human contact near to him, even in his desert of loneliness.(8)

 
Figure 2.1: Brahms, Alto Rhapsody 
 
Aber abseits, wer ist's?               But, apart there, who is it? 
Ins Gebusch verliert sich sein Pfad,   He loses his way in the thicket, 
Hinter ihm schlagen                    Behind him 
Die Strauche zusammen,                 The undergrowth closes together, 
Das Gras steht wieder auf,             The grass springs up again, 
Die Ode verschlingt ihn.               The wasteland swallows him. 
 
Ach, wer heilet die Schmerzen          Ah, who will heal the torments 
Des, dem Balsam zu Gift ward?          Of him to whom balsam became 
                                         poison? 
Der sich Menschenha[Beta]              Who drank hatred of mankind 
Aus der Fulle der Liebe trank!         From the fullness of love? 
Erst verachtet, nun ein Verachter,     Once despised, now a despiser, 
Zehrt er heimlich auf                  He seceretly consumes 
Seinen eigenen Wert                    His own worth 
In ungnugender Selbstsucht.            In fruitless selfishness. 
 
Ist auf deinem Psalter,                If upon thy psaltery, 
Vater der Liebe, ein Ton               Father of Love, there is a tone 
Seinem Ohre vernehmlich,               Audible to his ear, 
So erquicke sein Herz!                 Then refresh(a) his heart! 
Offne den umwolkten Blick              Open his clouded vision 
Uber die tausend Quellen               To the thousand springs 
Neben dem Durstenden                   Near the thirsty one 
In der Wuste.                          In the desert. 
 
(a) Or perhaps "restore"; cf. n. 9.