A German Requiem

Brahms was not a symphonist like the others. Throughout his life, he wrote magnificent choral music, rediscovering Schütz and Bach, to whom, like Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Schumann, he felt a deep connection. Long before writing his First Symphony , his experience with the choir brought him gravity and jubilation, all human feelings contained in the seven movements of A German Requiem , three of which—the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th—are fugues reminiscent...