Brahms Requiem

Camden Choir

Brahms's mother died in 1865 – one of only a few people who could claim to have been close to him. Brahms was numb with grief and yet, at the same time, he felt the need to express his sorrow in some artistic form. It was now that he began to think of composing a large-scale Requiem. He compiled the text solely from his own personal selection of biblical quotations and transformed the slow movement of an earlier symphony into the gigantic funeral march which forms the second movement of the Requiem.

The first three movements were performed in 1866, but were not well received. Brahms, however, was not deterred. He submitted them to a thorough revision, added three further movements to complete the work as he had planned it and conducted the first performance himself at Bremen Cathedral in 1867. This time the reception was ecstatic, both on account of the beauty of the music and the novelty of the text.

Brahms still felt that the balance was not quite right and, after a while, he came to the conclusion that a moment of peace was needed in the middle. He therefore composed the beautiful movement, Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit, for soprano solo and chorus which forms the fifth movement of the now completed work. It was first given in its entirety at Leipzig in 1869. The work was, of course, originally conceived for voices and orchestra, but Brahms also made an arrangement for piano-duet to replace the larger instrumental forces. It is this version that we shall perform tonight.