Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem

commentary by Anna de Vey Mestdagh & Kersten McCall

Mariss Jansons guides the Concertgebouworkest, the Netherlands Radio Choir and vocal soloists through Brahms’s awe-inspiring Ein deutsches Requiem. You can also watch the performance with commentary by two musicians.

Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem

Johannes Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem is not a German-language equivalent of the Roman Catholic requiem mass, but a work for the bereaved, for the living. The texts chosen for Ein deutsches Requiem and their deeply moving musical interpretation in particular certainly justify Brahms’s statement that the work should actually have been called ‘Ein menschliches Requiem’ (a human requiem). Ein deutsches Requiem is imbued with a sense of peace and consolation.

Mariss Jansons, chief conductor

Mariss Jansons was chief conductor of the Concertgebouworkest from 2004 to 2015. Their alliance was unprecedented and intensive, which instigated world-wide recognition. Mariss Jansons said about his engagement “The most important thing is unconditional dedication to the orchestra”. For Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, Mariss Jansons and the Concertgebouworkest collaborated with soprano Genia Kühmeier, baritone Gerald Finley and the Netherlands Radio Choir. You can also watch the performance with commentary by the musicians Anna de Vey Mestdagh and Kersten McCall (in Dutch).

watch the concert without commentary

 

Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem

Johannes Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem is not a German-language equivalent of the Roman Catholic requiem mass, but a work for the bereaved, for the living. The texts chosen for Ein deutsches Requiem and their deeply moving musical interpretation in particular certainly justify Brahms’s statement that the work should actually have been called ‘Ein menschliches Requiem’ (a human requiem). Ein deutsches Requiem is imbued with a sense of peace and consolation.

Mariss Jansons, chief conductor

Mariss Jansons was chief conductor of the Concertgebouworkest from 2004 to 2015. Their alliance was unprecedented and intensive, which instigated world-wide recognition. Mariss Jansons said about his engagement “The most important thing is unconditional dedication to the orchestra”. For Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem, Mariss Jansons and the Concertgebouworkest collaborated with soprano Genia Kühmeier, baritone Gerald Finley and the Netherlands Radio Choir. You can also watch the performance with commentary by the musicians Anna de Vey Mestdagh and Kersten McCall (in Dutch).

watch the concert without commentary

 

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