In stiller Nacht (14 Deutsche Volkslieder, WoO 34: No. 8)
Traditional (German), arr. Johannes Brahms
Recording
RIAS Kammerchor, Marcus Creed
- Album
- Brahms: Lieder und Gesänge
- Year
- 1996
- Length
- Period
- Folk song
- Listen
Painting
Timoteo Viti
Full Page Miniature: The Agony in the Garden, 1490–1500
The piece
The words are adapted from Friedrich Spee's poem on Christ's agony in the garden of Gethsemane, published after his death in the collection Trutz-Nachtigall (1649). Brahms arranged the song for four-part mixed choir a cappella and included it in his 14 Deutsche Volkslieder, WoO 34, published in 1864.
The recording
The RIAS Kammerchor of Berlin recorded it under Marcus Creed, its artistic director from 1987, for an album of Brahms's secular choral songs issued by harmonia mundi in September 1996.
Other recordings
The NDR Chor under Günter Jena (1983) and the solo-voice version, WoO 33 No. 42, sung by Elisabeth Schwarzkopf with Gerald Moore, are worth hearing.