Brahms’ Sounds Make Long-Awaited Return

The worldwide Brahms barrage has largely bypassed Spokane. The centennial of Johannes Brahms’ death has stimulated Brahms festivals and commemorations in many of the major music centers. So far this season, though, only a few of the German master’s works have been performed here.

The Spokane Symphony Orchestra and Chorale will rectify that lapse Friday with an all-Brahms program featuring “Ein deutsches Requiem” and the “Tragic Overture.” Fabio Mechetti will conduct, and the concert will feature soprano Julie Newell and baritone Kevin McMillan.

The Chorale, which has been without a permanent director since Randi Ellefson left last year, will be led in this performance by Washington State University music professor Paul Klemme.

“The actual 100th anniversary of Brahms’ death came on April 4,” Mechetti says, “so that was the purpose of choosing the ‘Requiem’ for the concert date closest to that event.”

The choice of the “Tragic Overture” solved another problem. “Usually it is difficult to program Brahms’ ‘Requiem’ with anything by another composer,” the conductor says, “so this became an all-Brahms program with the ‘Tragic Overture’ as the appetizer to set up the mood before the main course.”

The last time the symphony programmed Brahms’ “Requiem,” in 1989, it was performed in Robert Shaw’s English translation. Mechetti has chosen to perform it in the original German.

“I never really like to translate the text,” he says. “For me the sound of the words the composer heard in his mind is a part of the sound of the music. In translation, you lose a lot in terms of that quality.”

Brahms began composing “Requiem” when he was only 30 and finished five years later. “But he had already written many choral works before this,” Mechetti says. “And the ‘Requiem’ is a combination of all the things he had explored before.”

Brahms’ “Requiem” is unique. It is not a Requiem Mass like Mozart’s or Berlioz’s or Verdi’s. It does not use the Latin text of the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead nor even a German translation of it.

Brahms was not an orthodox member of any religious denomination, but he was an inveterate Bible reader. In writing “Ein deutsches Requiem,” Brahms chose texts from the Old and New Testaments and a few lines from The Wisdom of Solomon in the Apocrypha.

“The events that led to Brahms writing the ‘Requiem,’ like the death of Robert Schumann and the death of his own mother, contributed to the feeling of the work, but he didn’t write it as a church work as did many other composers before him and after,” Mechetti says. “It is unique in that it is not a Requiem for the dead but a work written for the comfort of the living. It’s a piece that’s very human, very comforting, very optimistic.”

Friday’s soloists sang Brahms’ “Requiem” with Mechetti two seasons ago with his “other orchestra,” the Syracuse Symphony. “Both of them have very flexible voices with a great variety of colors. It’s a good pairing,” Mechetti says.

Newell also has been heard here in Spokane, having performed with the Spokane Symphony in Britten’s “War Requiem,” in the opera-in-concert version of Puccini’s “Turandot” and on the symphony’s CD recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

The soprano has sung leading roles recently with opera companies in Syracuse, Memphis, Phoenix and Indianapolis. Newell will return to Spokane in the 1997-98 season to sing Micaela in Bizet’s “Carmen.”

McMillan is new to Spokane, but he has sung with practically every major North American orchestra under such conductors as Kurt Masur, Robert Shaw, Roger Norrington and Colin Davis. He has also performed widely in Europe in concerts and opera appearances in Berlin, Hamburg, Leipzig and Madrid.

Whitworth College English professor Leonard Oakland will discuss the music on the evening’s program in a pre-concert talk beginning at 7 in the Opera House auditorium.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CONCERT The Spokane Symphony Orchestra and Chorale performs at 8 p.m. Friday at the Spokane Opera House. Tickets: $13 to $28, available at the symphony ticket office (624-1200), G&B Select-a-Seat outlets or call (800) 325-SEAT.