Ein deutsches Requiem
John Eliot Gardiner conducts Brahms’ comforting masterpiece
John Eliot Gardiner leads the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Ein deutsches Requiem with the Monteverdi Choir, Christian Gerhaher and Lenneke Ruiten – in her Concertgebouw Orchestra debut. What could be more lovely?
In Ein deutsches Requiem for chorus, orchestra, and soloists, everything falls into place.
John Eliot Gardiner leads the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Ein deutsches Requiem with the Monteverdi Choir, Christian Gerhaher and Lenneke Ruiten – in her Concertgebouw Orchestra debut. What could be more lovely?
In Ein deutsches Requiem for chorus, orchestra, and soloists, everything falls into place.
Concert programme
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Heinrich Schütz
Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen (Psalm 84)
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Heinrich Schütz
Selig sind die Toten, die in dem Herren sterben
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Johann Christian Bach
Der Gerechte, ob er gleich zu zeitlich stirbt
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Johannes Brahms
Ein deutsches Requiem
Performers
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John Eliot Gardiner
conductor
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Lenneke Ruiten
soprano
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Christian Gerhaher
baritone
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Monteverdi Choir
choir
Dates and tickets
About this concert
John Eliot Gardiner returns to Amsterdam with his Monteverdi Choir, this time to conduct the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem. With this large-scale but restrained ‘requiem for humanity,’ Brahms created a Protestant, German-language answer to the more-common requiem mass in Latin. A requiem not for the dead, but to console those left behind.
John Eliot Gardiner and the Concertgebouw Orchestra began this Brahms cycle in 2021, linking Brahms’ symphonies with Brahms’ choral works and solo concertos. And, in Ein deutsches Requiem for chorus, orchestra and soloists, everything falls into place. This collaboration with the Concertgebouw Orchestra will undoubtedly be a highlight of the concert season. Especially with the addition of baritone Christian Gerhaher and soprano Lenneke Ruiten, who will be making her debut with the orchestra.
Brahms’ body of works clearly shows the influence of the early masters of polyphony. More specifically, Brahms was a great admirer of Heinrich Schütz, the leading Lutheran Protestant composer prior to the advent of Johann Sebastian Bach. Choral works by Schütz and Johann Christoph Bach (the Great, a distant relative of Johann Sebastian) point the way to Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem in their lyrics and text treatment.
