Then, the Brahms Festival culminates with one of the most moving tributes to grief and remembrance, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem.
Brahms called it Ein Deutsches Requiem to distinguish it from the Latin kind, to lift it from the merely religious, making of it something humanist and secular. A German requiem was not specifically for the German people; Brahms’ wanted it to speak to all humanity. A transcendent choral work, with gloriously tender parts for baritone and soprano, it is a work that speaks to the best of us.
Brahms began composing Ein Deutsches Requiem early in 1865, only a month or so after the death of his mother. The profound sense of loss and overwhelming grief of that time is unmistakably threaded throughout the music. But there’s also a wondrous feeling of gratitude. Where most requiems focus on the dead, Brahms’ begins with the living. The first words sung are “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted”.
Program
Spiritual works sung by Sir Bryn Terfel
Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem
Featuring
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
Jaime Martín conductor
Sir Bryn Terfel bass-baritone
MSO Chorus
Warren Trevelyan-Jones chorus director