Brahms’ German Requiem

The Orchestra of St. Luke’s 2024 season draws to a soul-soothing close with an all-Brahms program of two choral masterpieces. Principal Conductor Bernard Labadie leads the combined forces of La Chapelle de Québec chamber choir and the Handel and Haydn Society Chorus in the Begräbnisgesang and Ein deutsches Requiem, featuring soloists Andrè Schuen and Erin Morley. While both works are sacred in word and tone, Brahms eschewed liturgical traditions in favor of more humanist expressions, and he explicitly referred to his requiem as “a human Requiem,” written to comfort the living. The Begräbnisgesang, written nearly ten years earlier, can almost be seen as its precursor. Taking the listener from intense grief to hopeful, peaceful conclusions, both pieces assure us that all lives continue in the memory of the living.