From EMI:

Aribert Reimann

was born in Berlin in 1936. He studied composition there with Boris Blacher and Ernst Pepping, and piano with Otto Rausch. Today he lives in Berlin as a freelance composer, and is also a much sought-after pianist and a sensitive accompanist who has often appeared, and continues to appear, with well-known singers such as Catherine Gayer, Elisabeth Grümmer, Bngitte Fassbaender, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Emst Haefliger and Barry McDaniel.

Reimann grants the human voice a major position in his oeuvre, whether in the form of song cycles or vocal pieces with orchestra: Ein Totentanz for baritone and orchestra (1960), Verrà la morte to words by Cesare Pavese (1966), Inane, a monodrama for soprano and orchestra (1968), Zyklus für Bariton und Orchester (1971), Lines for soprano and strings (1973), Wolkenloses Christfest for baritone, cello and orchestra (1974), Six Songs to Poems by Sylvia Plath (1975). Apart from his orchestral works (which include two piano concertos, Loqui and Variations for Orchestra), Reimann has made a reputation with his stage works in particular: these include three ballets, the operas Ein Traumspiel after Strindberg, premiered in 1965 at the Kiel Opera, Melusine after the play by Yvan Goll (1970) and most recently Lear after Shakespeare (1978). With the appearance of Lear, if not before, Aribert Reimann joined the international ranks of the most important composers of our time.

For Reimann the decisive factor on a general level is the emotional core of the music - "for me, music without emotions is sterile music". This is certainly true without reservations of Reimann's own compositions.

Dona nobis pacem

I.

A composer who embarks on the writing of a Requiem today cannot do so with the same freedom as a Mozart or Verdi (to name just two of the most famous Requiem composers). Aribert Reimann's Requiem is not only a work of our time in its musical expression; as the composer acknowledges, it was clear to him that the liturgical sections of the old mass for the dead could not be used alone in their traditional form - and not only because the work was not written for ecclesiastical use.

Reimann, for whom language has always been more than merely an external motivation for his work, found supplementary texts in the Old Testament Book of Job, that dark, reflective story of the man whom God loves, yet thrusts from his favour into the deepest existential misery and want.

This juxtaposition or even confrontation of two texts that are utterly heterogeneous, although in the inmost recesses of the heart they are once again related, created two poles in the composition, two levels, the tension between which determines the character of the work. "A play of forces" between the pre-Christian and the Christian spirit is how Reimann himself describes it: Job's naive questions find their answers in the liturgical text, which in turn is challenged by Job's laments and doubts. Thus each text pervades the other, each illuminates the other in a new light.

Moreover, the Job text is sung not only in the (revised) German Luther translation, but in Hebrew, ancient Greek, Latin, English, French and Hungarian as well. In this way Reimann enlarges his composition into a truly cosmopolitan work; the consonance of the languages with their varying timbres creates unfamiliar discords and harmonies with a specific and unique expressive content. (Reimann had previously used this multilingual technique in his work for eight-part choir John III, 16 in 1976.)

This of course deprives the Requiem of the strictly liturgical character that binds it to the funeral rites of the Catholic church. Reimann follows the original Latin text as far as the Agnus Dei; but he subjects the conclusion to a deliberate change: the Libera me that evokes the Apocalypse is omitted - instead, Reimann ends his Requiem in unorthodox fashion with the words "Dona nobis pacem" - 'Give us peace'. But this is actually Reimann's central concern, this entreaty that expresses mankind's eternal yearning for peace, and implicitly opens every Requiem: "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine" - 'Lord, grant them eternal rest'.

II.

As in earlier works, Aribert Reimann scored his Requiem for an orchestra of unusual composition: there are no violins, and violas, cellos and double-basses provide a "darkened" sound. Alongside the flute appears the low alto and bass flute, alongside the clarinet the bass clarinet, alongside the bassoon the even lower- pitched contra-bassoon. In the brass section there are no horns.

With the exception of the conclusion, Reimann has assigned exclusively the Latin Requiem text to the choir; he has for the most part avoided letting the choral passages approach the liturgy. The solo voices sing the verses from Job, admittedly with a deliberate "allocation of roles": lament and outcry are rendered by the baritone, while the two female voices are used to achieve a degree of 'objectivity' (- to stop the work becoming a 'Job opera', as the composer says). The potential allusion to the Trinity contained in the number of the soloists, however, is by no means ruled out.

Although not expressly stated, the work falls into two parts in both layout and structure. In the first part, the Dies irae, the evocation of the Last Judgment with all its horrors, occupies the central position: the music is characterized by vigorous, weighty outbursts, timpani and percussion having important functions. Here the stage composer profits from his recent experience: without Lear, as Reimann comments, he could not have achieved this body of dramatic gesture. The music of the Introitus (I) begins in a closely-packed tonal space; the low woodwind and the strings make their entries in clusters, the male choir follows immediately, in the second bar, with the liturgical text, and the first a cappella choral passage is soon heard. These chorale-like sections are interpolated time after time, in the same way as the entire composition takes its life not least from the tension between the accompanied and unaccompanied singing (in the solo parts too).

The entry of the first solo (baritone) with the execration of the day of his birth visibly enlivens the rhythmic structure, which soon takes on a polyrhythmic character. Furthermore, the musical development is repeatedly influenced by surface, chords surrounded by sharp attacking movements.

The Kyrie (II) is in a way woven into the Introitus: a brief, austere choral passage (a cappella), interrupted twice by the solo baritone, before the soprano and the mezzo-soprano sing of the anguish and transience of all earthly things.

This gives the cue for the Dies irae (III): a tremendous fortissimo cluster from the whole orchestra is answered by the choir piano and without specified pitch. Not until the repeat does the choir also break out in the forte - the frightened whispering is followed by horror-stricken shouts and cries. The musical material is now torn asunder, as it were; an (ordered) rhythmic chaos signals the end of time, the Apocalypse and the Day of Judgement.

The entry of the baritone solo marks a moment of suspension: only the kettledrum, the tam-tam and the bronze plate accompany the voice. The Tuba mirum, the musical representation of the trumpet of doom, uses only the brass section of the orchestra, which plays in almost canon fashion. After an ever increasing expansion of the tonal material, the overall sound mounts to flickering cluster outbursts.

Moments of calm alternate with renewed outbursts; with the Recordare a choral fugue commences, with only sparing instrumental accompaniment. - "Ich weinte ja über den, der harte Zeit hatte" ('I wept for him who endured hardship'), solo baritone: the orchestral events shift to the strings and woodwind, to die away softly in the soprano solo, which takes up words from the Requiem text, the cellos and the double-basses.

A particular structural feature of the work is Reimann's flexible and thoroughly melodic musical treatment of the Old Testament verses in contrast to the block-like choral passages with their strict form and their tendency to expansive movement. Reimann himself describes the music of the Dies irae as a kind of polyphony that makes use of the variation principle.

The second part of the Requiem gradually gains an ever greater and deeper tranquillity; the soft and lyrical qualities come more and more to the fore. The orchestration is more economical: the percussion is relieved by two harps.

The Offertorium (IV) begins with an unaccompanied baritone solo; this is followed by a kind of brief instrumental prelude, intoned by the flute, the alto and bass flute, the cellos and harps. A four-part, chorale-like a cappella choral passage gives the musical material, the trumpets take it over and enlarge it, then the movement progresses through a dense web of woodwind into a reminiscence of the beginning of the movement. The conclusion takes the form of a trilingual a cappella coda sung by the soloists.

The ingenuous attitude of the Sanctus (V), of the glorification of God and his splendour, is expressly called into question by the Job text. The twelve-part a cappella choral writing is built up on a base of harmonic triads, but each choral part is allotted a different key. Within this polytonal structure, the individual keys or chords are exchanged among the choral parts, which lends the development a gripping inner motion. In a vocal line reminiscent of Gregorian chant the mezzo-soprano soloist throws into the midst of the "Hosianna" the perception that only God has the freedom to destroy his own creation. Reimann, who once called the Sanctus "an almost theatrical moment", ties the worship and the fear of God together by means of this extraordinary contrast: here the composition moves into the sphere of theological interpretation.

A chord of six fourths on the cellos ushers in the Agnus Dei (VI), answered by the low woodwind in unison. Here, too, the words of the liturgy are preceded by verses from the Book of Job: the soprano soloist sings pianissimo a Hungarian text. The choir alto gives the Latin 'response', initially unison, then joined by the strings and finally by the baritone soloist singing in German. Long horizontal chords characterize the orchestral language of this movement, which comes to an end with the unaccompanied baritone solo. The Communio (VII) also begins, as did the Sanctus, with an a cappella choral passage (here nine-part), before the two female soloists begin to sing anew the "Requiem aeternam dona eis". Choir and soloists alike follow with verses from Job, sung in the seven above-mentioned languages, affirming the eternal lawfulness of death.

A short baritone solo ("Glaubstdu nicht, daß ich

wenigstens dort Ruhe finden werde?": 'Do you not believe that I shall find rest there at least?') leads associatively ('rest': 'peace') into the Dona nobis pacem, sung by both choir and soloists and accompanied at first by the harps, then by the string groups in unison. The voices die away piano, without accompaniment.

The end is conciliatory; it brings the certainty that the rule of death is but peaceable, and ultimately places hope in the eternally renewed power of life, of which death remains an unalterable part - but only a part.

III.

Aribert Reimann wrote his Requiem for the 100th anniversary of the Kiel Regatta: a strange piece of birthday music. Wouldn't happy, festive sounds have been more appropriate? As was stated at the outset, the Dona nobis pacem, the supplication for peace, is the central pillar on which the work rests, its very foundation. Today, in June 1982, more than ever, when in the Near East and in the South Atlantic alike the lethal violence of weapons holds sway contrary to all human reason, today, when wars are still being fought as they were a century ago - is not this entreaty more necessary than ever? An anniversary is a joyous occasion; but the celebrations need not close our eyes and ears. Let Reimann's Requiem, therefore, like the Momenta mori of the Roman Caesars, be not only a warning that we must one day cease our celebrations and die too, but also a reminder that, despite all the apparent cause for happiness, there is still no peace in our world.

Translation: Clive R. Williams

Aribert Reimann REQUIEM, fur Sopran, Mezzosopran, Bariton, gemischten Chor und Orchester unter Verwendung des lateinischen Requiem-Textes und von Versen aus dem Buch Hiob

Ausfuhrende:   JULIA VARADY, Sopran; HELGA DERNESCH, Mezzosopran; DIETRICH FISCHER-DIESKAU, Bariton; RIAS-Kammerchor. Einstudierung: UWE GRONOSTAY. Radio-Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Leitung: GERD ALBRECHT, 9. Januar 1983, Grofier Sendesaal, Masurenallee 8-14, 20.00 Uhr.