Herzogenberg: Totenfeier & Requiem

The Austrian romantic composer, Heinrich von Herzogenberg is known primarily through his association with the circle of friends of Brahms. He wrote a variety of works including sacred music. From the cpo label: It is a unique case in music history for a composer to have dealt with the theme of dying and death on the basis of three very different texts: the classic subject of the Catholic Mass for the Dead (Requiem), a work best described as a Lutheran cantata drawing on German texts from the Bible and hymn stanzas, and a poem of his own authorship. Heinrich von Herzogenberg, to whom cpo is dedicating an edition containing almost all of his works, took it upon himself to cope with grief in this way. He composed his Requiem in 1890 without a specific occasion in mind, but his other two works represent artistic reactions to two personal and sorrowful strokes of fate. Philipp Spitta, his best friend, unexpectedly died of a heart attack in 1894, when he was only fifty-two years old, an