Rinaldo (cantata)

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Rinaldo (cantata)

Rinaldo, a cantata for tenor solo, four-part male chorus and orchestra, was begun by Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms , composer and pianist, was one of the leading musicians of the Romantic music. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene....
in 1863 as an entry for a choral competition announced in Aachen

Aachen

is a historic spa town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is the westernmost city of Germany, located along its borders with Belgium and the Netherlands, 65 km west of Cologne....
. He chose as his text the dramatic poem of the same name by Goethe, which presents an episode from the epic Gerusalemme Liberata by Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso

Torquato Tasso was an Italy poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata , in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem ....
in the form of a series of dialogues between the knight Rinaldo, who has been enchanted by the witch Armida

Armida

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Rinaldo, a cantata for tenor solo, four-part male chorus and orchestra, was begun by Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Aachen

Torquato Tasso

Armida

Armida is a beautiful enchantress in Torquato Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, who bewitched Rinaldo, one of the Crusaders, by her charms, as Circe did Odysseus, and who in turn, when the spell was broken, overpowered her by his love and persuaded her to become a Christian....
, and his fellow knights, who are calling him back to the path of duty.

The part of Armida is not sung as she makes only a silent appearance. Although the work was four-fifths completed in 1863, Brahms laid it aside and only finished it in 1868 after the success of his Ein deutsches Requiem
Ein deutsches Requiem

Ein deutsches Requiem, nach Worten der heiligen Schrift, opus number 45 is a large-scale work for choir, orchestra, and soloists, composed by Johannes Brahms between 1865 and 1868....
.

The premiere took place in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the Capital of Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million...
on 28 February 1869 at a concert of the Akademischer Gesangverein. The composer conducted, with the tenor Gustav Walter

Gustav Walter

Gustav Walter was a Bohemia opera tenor who sang leading roles for more than thirty years at the Vienna Staatsoper in Austria. He was a highly regarded interpreter of the works of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Richard Wagner, and notably created the role of Assad in the world premiere of Karl Goldmark's Die K?nigin von Saba....
, a student chorus numbering 300, and the Court Opera orchestra. Rinaldo was subsequently published as Brahms’ Op.

Opus number

Opus, from the Latin word opus meaning "work", is usually used in the sense of "a work of art".The Latin plural of opus, "opera", is used to refer to the genre of music drama ....
50. It has never been popular, but is interesting on a number of counts, not least because it may give the closest idea of what a Brahms opera would have sounded like.

External links

: Free scores at the .