It has already become a tradition to celebrate Freedom Defenders Day at the LNOBT, devoting the most outstanding works of sacred music to this occasion. On 13 January 2023, we kindly invite you to J. Brahms' "German Requiem".
Composed between 1865 and 1868, Johannes Brahms' “German Requiem” is his greatest choral work and possibly the best-known work in its genre – that is, of Requiems standing outside the liturgical settings of the Latin requiem mass. Brahms consciously chose words from the Bible concentrating on the consoling of the bereaved as well as the peaceful deposition of the souls of the departed: the three extended movements for the full orchestra each end affirmatively with emphasis on everlasting joy, or the departed souls of the righteous resting peacefully in God's hands, or of victory over the grave. The structure of the work is laid out as an arch, buttressed by the invocations of "Selig sind" – blessed be those who mourn, or those who have died.
