Type: Requiem
Composer: Johannes Brahms
Program: A German Requiem, Op. 45
Location: Charles Bronfman Auditorium, Tel Aviv, Israel
Conductor: Manfred Honeck
Performed by: The Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra
Soloists: Chen Reiss, Matthias Goerne
Year 2019

A German Requiem was composed after a period of personal loss in the life of Johannes Brahms, with the death of his friend Robert Schumann, and then his mother. Rather than composing a traditional liturgical requiem centered on redemption, Brahms assembled his own selection of German biblical texts to create a work concerned with grief, memory, and consolation for the living. Manfred Honeck leads the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra in a reading with emotional clarity, revealing human vulnerability.