Tulsa Chorale: Brahms’ “A German Requiem”
First Baptist
Tulsa
Nov. 18, 2023
On a blustery Saturday night, a crowd of about a hundred settled into the First Baptist Church at 5th and Detroit to listen to “A German Requiem,” a choral work by 19th-century composer Johannes Brahms. Led by Dr. Zachary Malavolti, the hundred-plus member Tulsa Chorale, accompanied by 20 musicians from the Tulsa Symphony Orchestra, performed with elegance and intensity, and not a single misstep throughout the 80 minutes of the piece.
But while the choir’s powerful polyphony provided plenty to listen to and look at — not to mention the church’s beautiful stained glass windows and fascinating half-star at the top of the pulpit stage — my eyes had a tough time staying open. If you’ll allow me to be nitpicky, with the time change and the low temperature, a start time of 7:30 p.m. (for a mournful choral work no less) felt practically nocturnal. Brahms’ Requiem is a funeral dirge, usually read as a lament for his mother as well as for his mentor and advocate Robert Schumann, and the slow sadness of the piece sounded the death knell of my attention span. While Brahms’ inspired lyrics, pulled from the German Luther Bible, were well sung, the composition has them being delivered at about a staggering syllable per second. For my Twitter-addled brain, it was like watching an army walk through a field of molasses.
To be clear, the piece is not without beauty, and the Chorale performed it exceptionally: they’re obviously a well-rehearsed machine. The fifth and sixth movements were surprising gems, with impressive solos by Meray Boustani and David Howard. The sixth movement especially brought out Brahms’ power for high drama, which is lacking in much of the rest of the work.
My main complaint, I think, is programmatic. This piece is such a dirge, so sleepy and long, that I couldn’t help but feel it as a strange choice for a season opener in the cold bleak night of November, especially as a piece to form an entire evening around, with nothing else on the bill for balance. It felt almost like one of those crystal bowl sound baths: not something to attend to, but something to take in, like musical Xanax for a pharmaceutically-starved 1800s.
That said, the chorale was in fine form; if anything, the night left me in full awe of the power and precision of the voices of these performers. No animus toward Brahms, either: If my mom died, I imagine I’d compose a really slow and melancholy work, too. As it happens, Tulsa Chorale has programmed their entire season to feature requiems (continuing with John Rutter’s in February and Mozart’s in April). I have no reservations about the talent of the musicians — their panache and vigor brought a welcome sense of life to a heavy experience — and I’ll certainly go back for another show. I’ll probably just drink an espresso beforehand.
