Abstract

Although Johannes Brahms always kept himself well informed on the political issues of his day, he only rarely engaged these issues in his music. In my new book, Brahms Patriotic and Political, I offer a revisionary—and I hope rehabilitative—interpretation of the only three works in which contemporary sociopolitical matters stand very much to the fore. The first is a little-known set of Fünf Lieder für Männerchor, Brahms’s only essay in a genre that had been a prime medium for the expression of liberal-nationalist sentiment dating back to the years of Napoleonic domination of the German lands. The second is the Triumphlied, a massive choral-orchestral setting of biblical texts culled from the Book of Revelation, in which Brahms celebrated the German victory in the Deutsch-Französischer Krieg and the ensuing foundation of the German Reich. And the third is the Fest- und Gedenksprüche, three short settings of biblical verses for double choir a cappella that represents Brahms’s later contribution to the necessary project of instilling in the diverse German peoples a genuine sense of national belonging. I call into question the widespread belief that some of this music evinces embarrassing anticipations of later German militarism, jingoism, and national chauvinism. In this talk I highlight a few key points about each of these three “political works” by way of showing how an expansive examination of the historical contexts in which they were composed can reshape the way we have come to think about Brahms’s patriotic and political sensibilities.