Live, Video: Find classical music concert, opera, ballet and dance reviews | Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem), Op.45

Anu Komsi stars in Brahms at the Barbican; Sakari Oramo revives memorial tributes by Rautavaara and Sallinen. 

The Monteverdi Choir and Dinis Sousa bring a fresh perspective to a performance of Brahms' German Requiem with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam.

Sakari Oramo leads the Czech Philharmonic in a powerful German Requiem with vocal support from the Prague Philharmonic Choir, Anu Komsi and Christian Senn.

Contemplation and reflection should ideally form a counterpoint to jollity and merry-making in the festive season: an object-lesson from Sir Simon Rattle and his supporting forces.

Walshe’s quirky The Site of an Investigation, in its London premiere, and Brahms A German Requiem look at the heavens and the earth. 

Fazıl Say’s concerto for piano four-hands gets its US premiere with siblings Lucas and Arthur Jussen at the keyboard. 

The constituent parts made up a contrasting and stimulating whole: works by Lili Boulanger, Messiaen and Brahms, united by biblical inspiration. Edward Gardner marshalled the collective London Philharmonic forces.

The revisions were minor, but the Requiem remained a fitting work for a modern metropolis: reverent, mysterious, a little bit distant but a powerful prayer for peace.

Janowski's concept rang consistently true and the musicians did him proud.

Marin Alsop and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment lead a searing account of Brahms' German Requiem and Vaughan Williams. 

The ubiquitous cycle of life and death was explored in two contrasting works by Musgrave and Brahms in Richard Farnes’ debut with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

Celebrating the 150th anniversary of its first performance, Paavo Järvi directs the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen in Brahms' Requiem, with the Latvian State Choir and two outstanding soloists.

At Sunday’s Philharmonia Orchestra concert, guest conductor Karl-Heinz Steffens paired the Requiem with the composer’s autumnal Clarinet Quintet.

Hadelich dazzles, but Oundjian's Brahms is bland. 

Not much to set the heart racing in two works of German Romanticism performed by the London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, conducted by Fabio Luisi.

Jaap van Zweden returned to the CSO with a probing account of Brahms’ German Requiem, along with shorter but no less moving works of Mozart and Wagner.

Performers often speak of ecstatic moments. But that ecstasy doesn't always transfer beyond the stage. This was an extraordinary effort to bridge the divide. 

In a time when death and mourning lack any public or communal aspect, where the funeral procession has ceased to exist save for royalty and the occasional head of state, what relevance does the traditional dirge have?

The Netherlands Radio Choir is marking its 70th anniversary with a series of jubilee concerts, including Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, conducted with control and compassion by Edo de Waart.

Somewhere in the region of 180 singers and instrumentalists faced Andrew Manze as he took the podium at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall. Could he handle them? There was never any doubt.

Two choral works by Brahms and a striking rarity by Schumann performed by the Constanza Chorus and the London Mozart Players directed by Joanna Bywater.

Sunday night's concert saw the LSO on top form, however their partnerships with Christian Tetzlaff and LSO Chorus on either side of the interval produced mixed results. 

The Singverein and Akademieorchester were joined by Swedish soprano Malin Hartelius and Florian Boesch for Brahms' German Requiem.

The Vienna Philharmonic, the Westminster Symphonic Choir, Diana Damrau and Christian Gerhaher present a sublime Brahms Requiem on a snowy Sunday afternoon. 

Principal Guest Conductor Markus Stenz conducted a pair of very different works by fellow Germans, both featuring a strong nod towards Britain. The music spoke for itself, with a beautiful and original Brahms Requiem the highlight of the evening.The title of Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem is quite significant.

Starting a concert season with two works with Requiem in the title might sound rather gloomy, but not when one of them is Brahms’ beautiful, consolatory German Requiem, and particularly not when it’s placed in the hands of Thomas Zehetmair, who unfailing brings out the warmth and humanity of Brahms’ music from the musicians of the Royal Northern Sinfonia.

Who says life isn’t a dress rehearsal? Saturday night at the Proms was just that for New York-born Marin Alsop, for when she returns to the Royal Albert Hall in two weeks’ time she will make Proms history as the first female conductor to preside over the Last Night.

The sweet atmosphere of the end of a warm summer day and the gorgeous smell of fresh hay welcomed the spectators in to the impressive 12th-century walls, full of memories, of the Cistercian abbey of Noirlac. The venue adapted surprisingly well to the ancestral sonorities of Brahms’ German Requiem.

“Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted”, says the scripture, and it was so last night as Peter Oundjian conducted the mournful music of Brahms and Lieberson. Wave after wave of the rich textures of grieving arose and subsided in song, leaving in their wake the energy of reconciliation.The grieving of Peter Lieberson is deep.

I don’t think Valery Gergiev has ever been out to claim that Brahms and Szymanowski were particularly similar composers. I certainly hope he hasn’t, at any rate, on the basis of his final LSO programme pairing the two of them.

A German Requiem and two German composers sounds like your standard concert menu, but this concert was an interesting juxtaposition of two very different halves, the first filled by German composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s little-heard Ecclesiastical Action, and the second by the much-loved, much-performed German Requiem by Brahms.

Harry Christophers brought his Sixteen to Manchester for a night of deeply romantic choral music at The Bridgewater Hall. Brahms’ Deutsches Requiem was a foreseeable success, but the seldom-heard Vocal Quartets, settings of Sternau, Schiller, Daumer and Goethe, were a delightful addition to the programme.The first set of Brahms quartets, Op.

Of all the 'time arts', music is arguably best placed to convey impermanence. Frikki Walker's excellent pre-concert talk – the most philosophical I've experienced at an RSNO Friday evening concert – set this train of thought in motion.

There was a definite buzz about London’s Southbank Centre on the evening of 16th February, for this was the night of the second concert in the Philharmonia Orchestra’s ‘The Still Point of the Turning World’ series, which began last month to huge critical acclaim (see my review).

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.

What a wonderfully piquant contrast this concert gave us – the Brahms German Requiem followed by Captain Noah and his Floating Zoo. Yet in both, after passages of melancholy reflection, of turbulence and stress, at the end all is well and we can rest in peace. The Requiem is a demanding sing.

Christian Thielemann und die zwei Solist*innen – Samuel Hasselhorn und Nikola Hillebrand – zeigen eine bewegende Interpretation von Brahms' Requiem.

Tandis que le chœur s'est montré exemplaire dans cette partition romantique chargée, Stéphane Degout et Sabine Devieilhe ont fait des solistes inspirés.

Haydn und Brahms stehen am Programm eines eindrucksvollen Konzertes in der Philharmonie Berlin.

Orchester, Chor und Solisten vollbringen in unvergesslich oratorientheatralischer Wucht und textlich-dynamischer Detailversessenheit allerhöchsten Standard an Seligkeit.

Vladimir Jurowski und die Solisten bringen das Requiem in schönster Schlichtheit zu Gehör, für die sich keine adäquaten Worte finden lassen.

Sous la direction de Mathieu Romano, l'Ensemble Aedes et Les Siècles ont proposé une version originale du Requiem allemand de Brahms dans la basilique de Vézelay.

Currentzis Überpräzisierung lässt beim Brahms-Requiem die Leidenschaft vermissen.

À l'Auditorium, David Zinman était invité à diriger l'Orchestre National de Lyon dans le Requiem allemand de Johannes Brahms, précédé de la rare Sinfonia da Requiem de Benjamin Britten.

Bernard Haitink schafft mit dem Chor und Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks eine innige Interpretation von Brahms' Deutschem Requiem.

Non content d’associer deux compositeurs unanimement appréciés par les mélomanes, avertis ou non, le programme fait montre d’une vraie intelligence, celle de faire la part belle à deux lectures plus personnelles que bêtement nationales de la spiritualité.

À la tête de l'orchestre du Gewandhaus de Leipzig et du remarquable Wiener Singverein, l'éternel Herbert Blomstedt fait merveille dans le chef-d'œuvre de Brahms.

Der kanadische Dirigent Yannick Nézet-Séguin gastierte mit Johannes Brahms' Deutschem Reuquiem und Carl Philipp Emanuel Bachs Kantate Heilig in der ausverkauften Berliner Philharmonie.

Requiem Allemand par Christoph von Dohnányi annonçait l’affiche : le nom, résonnant avec Cleveland, évoque à lui seul un passé musical des plus héroïques… Mais le maître était souffrant et c’est Thomas Hengelbrock, chef associé de l'Orchestre de Paris, qui a courageusement pris les choses en main.