Brahms: Ein deutsches Requiem | Crouch End Festival Chorus

Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem is widely considered to be the greatest of all the Requiems. Written for soprano, baritone, choir and orchestra, the Requiem was well received at its premiere in Leipzig in 1869 and has remained a firm favourite ever since.

Brahms does not use the traditional Latin Mass but sets the text from the German Lutheran Bible. The result is a work of great comfort, focusing more on those who are left to mourn than those who have departed, with moments of great joy as well as sadness.

William Grant Still’s eloquent Wailing Woman, written in 1946, highlights both in its music and text the similarities between the Black and the Jewish experience of prejudice.

Starting the concert will be the Overture to Ethel Smyth’s opera masterpiece, The Wreckers, recently performed to great acclaim at Glyndebourne and the BBC Proms.