Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem

Composed between 1865 and 1868, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem has become a repertoire
staple for choirs around the world, amateur and professional alike, possibly because it relies so
much more on the choir than its soloists to convey the texts than other works. Brahms
chose not to set the Requiem Mass, but rather a collection of biblical texts of his own selection,
taken from the Lutheran Bible (hence the ‘deutsches’). Rather than a prayer for the dead,
Brahms’s concern is much more with offering comfort to the bereaved, still on earth. When
challenged about the lack of a single reference to Christ in the entire work, Brahms responded,
‘I would gladly omit even the word German and simply put Human’. This adds credence to the
view that he saw the work in an entirely humanist way, and that the religious overtones
of the title and text selection are much more a result of the avowedly Christian culture of his
times than a specific decision to express personal belief. Edward Gardner and his Bergen
forces are joined by the soloists Johanna Wallroth and Brian Mulligan in this exciting new recording.