The Schicksalslied is a short, powerful work for chorus

Choir

A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

 and orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

 composed by Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

 between 1868 and 1871, his Opus

Opus number

An Opus number , pl. opera and opuses, abbreviated, sing. Op. and pl. Opp. refers to a number generally assigned by composers to an individual composition or set of compositions on publication, to help identify their works...

 54. The text is that of Friedrich Hölderlin

Friedrich Hölderlin

Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism, particularly his early association with and philosophical influence on his...

's poem Hyperions Schicksalslied, originally part of the novel Hyperion. Brahms discovered the text in an early volume of Hölderlin's verse belonging to his friend Albert Dietrich

Albert Dietrich

Albert Hermann Dietrich , was a German composer and conductor, remembered less for his own achievements than for his friendship with Johannes Brahms.Dietrich was born at Golk, near Meissen...

, and immediately began sketching a setting, although it took him a long time to resolve structural and expressive questions. The poem has only two verses, the first describing the bliss of the gods and the second the sufferings of mankind "plunging blindly into the abyss." Brahms originally wanted to create a ternary form

Ternary form

Ternary form, sometimes called song form, is a three-part musical form, usually schematicized as A-B-A. The first and third parts are musically identical, or very nearly so, while the second part in some way provides a contrast with them...

 with a reprise of the first verse but felt this would be too contrary to Hölderlin's tragic vision. As completed, the work refers to the music of the first verse in the coda, but this is purely orchestral. A draft of his earlier conception, with chorus in the coda, exists and has been recorded. The premiere took place on 13 October 1871 in Karlsruhe

Karlsruhe

The City of Karlsruhe is a city in the southwest of Germany, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, located near the French-German border.Karlsruhe was founded in 1715 as Karlsruhe Palace, when Germany was a series of principalities and city states...

, conducted by Hermann Levi

Hermann Levi

Hermann Levi was a German Jewish orchestral conductor.Levi was born in Gießen, Germany, the son of a rabbi. He was educated at Gießen and Mannheim, and came to Vinzenz Lachner's notice...

.

External links

• Schicksalslied: Free scores at the Brahms Institut.

• Full text with English translation