Observations placeholder
Holderlin, Johann and Brahms - Hyperion's song of destiny
Identifier
015373
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Hölderlin was a fervent admirer of ancient Greek culture, but his understanding of it was very personal. Much later, Friedrich Nietzsche would recognize in him the poet who first acknowledged the Orphic and Dionysian Greece of the Mysteries. For Hölderlin, the Greek gods were not the plaster figures of conventional classicism, but living, actual presences, wonderfully life-giving though, at the same time, terrifying. He understood and sympathized with the Greek idea of the tragic fall, which he expressed movingly in the last stanza of his "Hyperions Schicksalslied" ("Hyperion's Song of Destiny").
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The Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny), Op. 54, is an orchestrally accompanied choral setting of the poem written by Friedrich Hölderlin and is one of several major choral works written by Johannes Brahms. Brahms began the work in the summer of 1868, but it was not completed until May 1871. The delay in completion was largely due to Brahms’s indecision as to how the piece should conclude.
Schicksalslied is considered to be one of Brahms’s best choral works. Josef Sittard argues in his book on Brahms, “Had Brahms never written anything but this one work, it would alone have sufficed to rank him with the best masters.” One of the shortest of Brahms’s major choral works, a typical performance lasts around 15 to 16 minutes.
A description of the experience
Holy spirits, you walk up there
in the light, on soft earth.
Shining god-like breezes
touch upon you gently,
as a woman's fingers
play music on holy strings.
Like sleeping infants the gods
breathe without any plan;
the spirit flourishes continually
in them, chastely kept,
as in a small bud,
and their holy eyes
look out in still
eternal clearness.
A place to rest
isn't given to us.
Suffering humans
decline and blindly fall
from one hour to the next,
like water thrown
from cliff to cliff,
year after year,
down into the Unknown.
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Brahms: Schicksalslied ∙ hr-Sinfonieorchester ∙ Collegium Vocale Gent ∙ Philipp Herreweghe
hr-Sinfonieorchester (Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra) ∙
Collegium Vocale Gent ∙
Philippe Herreweghe, Dirigent ∙
Alte Oper Frankfurt, 25. Oktober 2013 ∙
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Ihr wandelt droben im Licht
Auf weichem Boden selige Genieen!
Glӓnzende Gӧtterlüfte
Rühren Euch leicht,
Wie die Finger der Künstlerin
Heilige Saiten.
Schicksallos, wie der Schlafende
Sӓugling, atmen die Himmlischen;
Keusch bewahrt,
In bescheidener Knospe
Blühet ewig
Ihnen der Geist,
Und die seligen Augen
Blicken in stiller
Ewiger Klarheit
Doch uns ist gegeben
Auf keiner Stӓtte zu ruh’n;
Es schwinden, es fallen
Die leidenden Menschen
Blindlings von einer
Stunde zur andern,
Wie Wasser von Klippe
Zu Klippe geworfen
Jahrlang in's Ungewisse hinab