Brahms Ein deutsches Requiem

Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem: A Requiem for the Living Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem holds a special place among the great sacred works. The music is warm and consoling, with a wide span from the stern to the lyrical. The work contains many beautiful passages and grows in depth and richness the better one gets to know it. Everything by Brahms is hard-wearing. Johannes Brahms was 31 years old when he began work on his requiem. His mother had died in February that same year, and Brahms grieved the loss. Instead of using the Latin liturgical text that was usual in a requiem, he chose texts himself from Luther’s German-language Bible. The starting point was not intercession for the dead, but comfort and encouragement for the living. A mother’s comfort is found in one of the texts: «As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you.» That Brahms chose texts in his mother tongue was also new and gave the work a more personal and humane character. Brahms himself said that the work could just as well be called A Requiem for Humanity. The requiem became Brahms’ breakthrough as a composer. It is a timeless work about grief and consolation, written not primarily for the dead, but for the living. Programme: Brahms / Ein deutsches Requiem

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