FEATURING
Janice Chandler-Eteme, soprano
Richard Zeller, baritone
Choraal Midwest

German Requiem by Johannes Brahms, is a large-scale work for chorus, orchestra, a soprano and a baritone soloist, composed between 1865 and 1868. It comprises seven movements, which together last 65 to 80 minutes, making this work Brahms’s longest composition.

The gentle opening movement, “Selig sind, die da Leid tragen” (Blessed are they that mourn), immediately marks the shift of emphasis toward the living. The remaining movements touch on the subject of death from a variety of angles. With “Selig sind die Toten” (Blessed are the dead), the work ends on a note of untroubled acceptance and resignation, in the pastoral key of F major, far from the sting of death.