A Smaller Version of the Brahms “Requiem”–“Nanie”

It has been fascinating to read about the life of Johannes Brahms, and his late composition “Nänie,” written over the course of a year from 1880-1881, is a good example of how he viewed relationships. This piece comes well over a decade after his Eine Deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) was finally completed in 1869, but both that major work and this single piece are focused on the theme of consolation for those who are mourning a death. (As I write this article in early February 2021 I’m planning to make my next project in book form to be on the Requiem. This is therefore a good warmup! If the subject of the Requiem intrigues you, be sure to check back on this website for updates. And of course the best way to be sure you do that is to subscribe to the blog. Go to the sidebar to do that.)

“Nänie” was written to honor the memory of Brahms’ friend Anselm Feuerbach, a painter who died at the tragically young age of 50. Brahms knew Feuerbach because of his own interest in art; he had a circle of friends who were painters, among them Feuerbach. In fact, the painter’s style was compared to that of Brahms: both were interested in severe classical restraints on personal emotion. Feuerbach’s paintings were focused primarily on Classical themes and subjects, so when he died Brahms’ choice of text illustrated the painter’s style as well as his own. The piece was dedicated to Feuerbach’s stepmother Henriette; more about her below.

Feuerbach’s and Brahms’ aesthetics were very similar, but in some ways so were their personal lives. Neither man ever married, both carried on love affairs with women of their own age or younger but ultimately drew away from them, and both were very attached to older women. Feuerbach’s relationships with young women were much less honorable than those of Brahms, however, and unlike Brahms the painter “craved money and rich clothes, he was jealous of all others, he was vain, and a fanatical polemicist, with his favourite subject being himself.”

Both men had hugely influential mother figures in their lives well into adulthood. Brahms took care of his biological mother’s living arrangements, and the Requiem was written at least partially because of her death. He also carried on some kind of long attachment with Clara Schumann, the wife and then widow of the composer Robert Schumann, outliving her by less than a year. She was 14 years older than he was, so technically old enough to be his mother. There’s endless speculation about the exact nature of the relationship between the two; see below for a somewhat telling quotation from one of Brahms’ letters to her. Who knows? On the other hand, Feuerbach’s own mother died when he was less than six months old and his father remarried about five years later. His stepmother Henriette was fiercely devoted to her stepson and his career and was also quite a force in German musical society; “She gave piano lessons, directed a choir, and organized house concerts. Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms were among those who frequented her salon. Brahms and Henriette held each other in high esteem; in one of Brahms’ letters he referred to her and Anselm as ‘this splendid woman and her illustrious son.’” (Wikipedia) I wonder if the friendship between Johannes and Anselm got its start at these salons? Maybe one of these days I’ll read a full bio of Brahms and find out.

Another similarity between the two men is that the older women in their lives both destroyed their letters. Henriette reportedly did so after Anselm’s death and devoted her energies to perpetuating his reputation as an artist. Clara Schumann burned a number of Brahms’ letters to her, doing so at his request, and was only restrained from doing a thorough job of it by her grown daughter Marie. The remaining letters are tender and, one must say, pretty romantic. A fairly representative one, written only four months after Clara’s husband Robert had died, ends with, “With heartiest wishes for your welfare, and begging you to kiss me, Your Johannes.” Well! I’ll leave it at that for now.

Anyway, perhaps I’d better get to the piece itself. The text is by the German poet and playwright Friedrich Schiller, who had died in the early 1800’s. It had been set to music in 1874 by the composer Hermann Goetz, and Brahms is said to have heard a performance and liked it, so that when Feuerbach died he got the idea of writing his own version in honor of his friend. The many allusions to Greek mythology would have appealed to Brahms since Feuerbach painted scenes or portraits with those subjects almost exclusively. The theme of the poem is supposed to be “consolation,” as I pointed out at the beginning of this article, and I guess that’s valid. Here’s how the reader/listener is supposed to be consoled, however: “Nänie is a lamentation on the inevitability of death; the first sentence, ‘Auch das Schöne muß sterben,’ translates to ‘Even the beautiful must die.’” (Wikipedia) In other words, there’s no way that death can be vanquished. Don’t waste your time on thinking that somehow the loss could have been avoided; instead, remember the beauty of the loved one.

There are three Greek myths specifically mentioned by Schiller. He felt no need to explain the references in any way, assuming that his audience would be well-read enough to understand them. I was reminded of an article I wrote about a poem by Longfellow that was used as a text for a song; in it I said, “But what of his audience? how knowledgeable would they have been? The answer is, very knowledgeable indeed.” Longfellow was, of course, American, but the German literary public would have been just as well informed. So here I’ll outline briefly the three myths and the meaning of the poem, and then below the video I’ll give the full text in German and in English.

Schiller starts out by saying that even beauty must die, then uses three myths with three different types of beauty to illustrate his point. The first type of beauty is female, with the example of Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus. We’re all sort of vaguely aware that Orpheus went down into the Underworld to get his wife back after she died; he had been taught to play and sing by the god of music Apollo and his music was so compelling that “Stygian Zeus,” that is, Pluto or Hades, relented and said that Eurydice could return with her husband to earth. Only, though, Orpheus had to keep himself from looking back at her until they were both safely on earth. And did he resist that temptation? No, he did not. There are various reasons given as to why he couldn’t just have stayed facing forward for a few more steps:  1) he couldn’t hear his wife behind him because she was still a shadow, and he was checking to make sure she was really there, 2) he got concerned that perhaps Pluto had tricked him, or 3) Eurydice wasn’t in on the deal and so couldn’t understand why he wouldn’t look at her; finally he gave in to her pleas, thinking that they were both safe. As soon as he turned around, pfft! She vanished. And all the pleading and begging that Orpheus did was useless; as the poem says, Pluto “sternly withdrew his gift.”

The second myth has to do with male beauty, that of Adonis, a handsome young man who was greatly beloved by the goddess of love, Aphrodite or Venus. He gets gored by a boar when he’s out hunting and dies; she cannot save him or bring him back to life. Schiller uses only two lines on this myth, shifting next to the story of Achilles’ death, the “divine hero,” who is beautiful more for his bravery and desire for personal glory than for his physical looks. He dies at the gates of Troy (the “Scaean Gate”) and his mother, the goddess Thetis, can’t save him. All she can do is weep. And suddenly all the gods and goddesses are weeping, because beauty and perfection all pass away. Although those divine beings are out of the reach of death themselves, they can’t save mortals from it. And what’s the conclusion? If nobody mourns the dead, if they go down to the grave in silence, then they’re ignoble. “But a lament on the lips of loved ones is glorious” says the closing line. Schiller is using a very well-worn idea, that no one truly dies if he or she is remembered, but he’s doing so in an artful way.

Well, I’ve gone on for longer than my usual self-imposed word limit here, so I’ll stop. If your choir isn’t up for the full Brahms Requiem but would like something of his in a similar vein, “Nänie” is a good candidate.

I have pulled from three translations available for what I list below; none is attributed.

I can’t resist pointing out here, for the diehards who’ve read this far and who are also fans of Little Women–admittedly perhaps a small subset–that when John Brooke is talking to Meg at the picnic he has her read aloud from a Schiller play about Mary Stuart:

“Try a little now; here is Schiller’s ‘Mary Stuart,’ and a tutor who loves to teach,” and Mr. Brooke laid his book on her lap, with an inviting smile.

“It’s so hard I’m afraid to try,” said Meg, grateful, but bashful in the presence of the accomplished young lady beside her. . . .

“Try this passage.”

There was a queer smile about Mr. Brooke’s mouth as he opened at poor Mary’s lament.

Meg, obediently following the long grass blade which her new tutor used to point with, read slowly and timidly, unconsciously making poetry of the hard words by the soft intonation of her musical voice. Down the page went the green guide, and presently, forgetting her listener in the beauty of the sad scene, Meg read as if alone, giving a little touch of tragedy to the words of the unhappy queen. If she had seen the brown eyes then, she would have stopped short; but she never looked up, and the lesson was not spoiled for her.

“Very well indeed!” said Mr. Brooke, as she paused, quite ignoring her many mistakes, and looking as if he did, indeed, “love to teach.”

© Debi Simons