Brahms – Schicksalslied (1871)

At university we called this The Chicken Salad Song, for no good reason at all, save that the word ‘Schicksalslied’ sounds a bit like ‘Chicken Salad’ and the Lied means song. We thought we were at the cutting edge of musical thinking…

Around the late 1860s, Brahms found himself falling in love with Julie, the daughter of the Schumanns (A LEVEL CLARA KLAXON). As a result his music at this time is lush and actually romantic – his Op.49 Lieder, the Liebeslieder-Walzer (Love Song Waltzes), NeueLiebeslieder (the New Love Songs), Triumphlied (Song of Triumph), and today’s listening choice – the Song of Destiny. Clara called his Rhapsody for Alto, Male Chorus and Orchestra‘his Wedding Song’.

Julie was then engaged to someone else, which wasn’t his preferred outcome we could say. He threw himself into his orchestral work, including finishing his first symphony.

Today’s choice – the Song of Destiny– is said to rank as his best choral work, perhaps surpassing his German Requiem.

Scored for chorus with orchestra, the work is in three movements:

Adagio: Ihr wandelt droben im Licht. (E♭ major) 

Allegro: Doch uns ist gegeben. (C minor) 

Adagio: Orchestral postlude (C major)

A translation of the words can be found here|: https://www.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Schicksalslied,_Op._54_(Johannes_Brahms)

And if you liked Brahms and his choral writing, give this a go – a shorter work for choir with either organ or strings titled Geistliches Lied. Composed in 1856, it uses a canon at the 7^th between sopranos and tenors, and a separate canon at the 7^th between altos and basses (which is not the easiest thing to write). It also has one of the *best* Amens in any piece ever:

Score and audio:

Live performance, with the organ part orchestrated for strings: