Geistliches Lied | Laß dich nur nichts nicht dauern

by Paul Fleming (1609 - 1640)

Translation

Pilgerspruch

(Sung text for setting by F. Mendelssohn)

Language: German (Deutsch) after the German (Deutsch)

Our translations: CAT DUT DUT ENG FRE SPA

Laß dich nur nichts nicht dauern
Mit Trauern,
Sei stille! 
Wie Gott es fügt,
So sei vergnügt
Mein Wille.

Was willst du heute sorgen
Auf morgen?
Der Eine
steht allem für;
Der gibt auch dir
das Deine.

Sei nur in allem Handel
Ohn Wandel,
Steh feste! 
Was Gott beschleußt,
Das ist und heißt
das Beste. 
Amen!

Notes provided by Laura Prichard: As with the great German Requiem, Brahms started composing music for his Geistliches Lied, op. 30 in his teens. Brahms’ father was a double-bass player who took him along to Hamburg bar gigs as a child, where he learned to improvise and compose. From the age of fifteen, he was a professional piano accompanist for the virtuoso violinist Ede (Eduard) Reményi; he continued as a professional accompanist in his early twenties, working with violist Joseph Joachim and trading weekly "contrapuntal studies" with him. Geistliches Lied dates from the beginning of this exchange (1856), although Joachim was a bit shocked by its "harsh places" [dissonances in the Amen] and "rough harmony [the double canon texture]."

The text of this double canon "at the ninth" for four-part chorus is a seventeenth-century German poem ("Lass dich nur nichts bedauern") by Paul Flemming (1609-1640), a doctor who finished his training in Hamburg, Brahms’ hometown. The organ prelude combines quotes from the finale of Robert Schumann’s Symphony No. 4 and an organ fantasy of his wife Clara Wieck Schumann, whom Brahms first met at age twenty in Düsseldorf. The consoling words may reference Robert Schumann’s failed drowning attempt and two years of his confinement in a sanatorium, since Brahms acted as Clara’s messenger, and she was not allowed to see her husband again until two days after his death. These experiences left an impression on all of Brahms’ music from 1854-1856. Robert frequently requested that visitors read to him from the Bible: Brahms’ friend Rudolf von der Leyen reported that "this desire was understood by [Schumann’s] doctors to be a new symptom of his mental illness and was, for the most part, denied." However, Brahms snuck in a copy, and he read to his mentor from Luther’s translation. The two canons coincide at the texts "Sei stille" (be calm) and "Steh feste" (be steadfast).

Composition:

Felix Mendelssohn

Zwölf Gesänge [nos. 2, 3, and 12 are by Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel]

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Research team for this page: Emily Ezust [Administrator] , Johann Winkler

This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 18
Word count: 60