Brahms: Ein Deutsches Requiem /halsey

Philip Mayers, Philip Moll, piano; Marlis Petersen, soprano - Konrad Jarnot, baritone; Rundfunkchor Berlin; Simon Halsey, conductor

Johannes Brahms (1813-1897)
Ein deutsches Requiem
(Version for piano, four hands, adapted for soloists, chorus and piano duet by Philip Moll)

Johannes Brahms broke the bounds of tradition with his German-language Requiem. A requiem is the mass for the dead in the Catholic liturgy and was traditionally held in Latin. Brahms, a Protestant, didn't write a requiem in the conventional sense but a kind of funeral music with texts chosen freely from the Bible as translated by Luther. In contrast to the traditional requiem, it contains no description of the horrors of the Last Judgement ("dies irae"), but instead offers comfort to the living and the bereaved.
Brahms also arranged the orchestral score of the Requiem for piano-four-hands, wanting to make it possible to perform the work on a small scale as well. In a letter to Clara Schumann, he wrote with some self-irony: "I have devoted myself to the noble activity of making my immortal work accessible for four-handed souls as well."
On this recording, Germany's oldest radio chorus, the Rundfunkchor Berlin (Berlin Radio Chorus), made up of 64 full-time professional singers, under its conductor Simon Halsey, demonstrates clearly why it received a Grammy for its recording of Brahms' Requiem with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. The solo vocal parts are sung by rising soprano star Marlis Petersen and the known Lieder singer Konrad Jarnot. The unfamiliar sound of two pianos in place of an orchestra makes this recording very special.