Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem Op 45 (German Requiem), as performed by The City of Bath Bach Choir at the Wiltshire Music Centre last Saturday, is a sombre work. Hardly surprising as the word ‘requiem’ usually refers to the Catholic Mass celebrated for the dead. Yet it was easy to feel uplifted as well as deeply moved by the choir’s clarity of diction, the stirring delivery, of Brahms’ harmonic German text.
The immediate members of an almost capacity audience sitting around me could be heard to release approving sighs of pleasure at the end of each of seven movements skilfully and passionately conducted by the highly experienced and internationally renowned Nigel Perrin. This piano-duet accompaniment version of the original choir and full orchestra does allow that text to stand out and gives a different dimension of lightness and precision to the work.
The sublime playing of Marcus Sealy and Nicholas Thorne never intruded on, but only enhanced, the vocals of both choir and solo performer.
In movements three and six, we were treated to the impressive baritone solo of Simon Trist; a commanding presence on stage. The beautiful, slow-moving, opening to Leah Jackson’s soprano solo in movement five only intensified the drama she was to so movingly deliver. The performance ended to thunderous applause from an appreciative audience.
In complete contrast to their previous all-black appearance, the choir entered for the second-half dressed in the most vibrant of colours (including wellington boots and umbrellas) and all to the sound of torrential rainfall. Joined on stage by the CBBC Junior Choir, resplendent in purple, they became a rainbow-feast for the eyes. The cantata Captain Noah and His Floating Zoo by Michael Flanders and Joseph Horovitz, is a light-hearted chronicling of Noah, charged by God to build an ark to preserve mankind and all the creatures of the Earth.