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Special Broadcast: Canterbury Choral Society Performs Johannes Brahms' A German Requiem

UPDATE - This special program will be heard Wednesday, April 23, 2014 at 8:00 pm, preempting Exploring Music. It was not broadcast last Saturday the 19th as scheduled due to technical problems.

The requiem of Johannes Brahms was first heard in public performance on Good Friday in 1868 in Bremen Cathedral, a highly personal and intimate portrait of the composer emerging in this sacred but non-liturgical piece which reshaped Brahms’ career. Though portions of the second movement were part of an earlier symphony begun in 1854 in response to Robert Schumann's attempted suicide, a more immediate impetus for the work as a whole was the death of Brahms' mother in 1865. Well-tutored from youth in Scripture, Brahms retained a love for Biblical language and pieced together a text celebrating the seasons of life, fusing Old and New Testament verses into a distinctive and unique “Protestant reflection on death, an affirmation of personal faith and courage and of consolation for the living,” as Lionel Salter describes it. The creation of the work also coincides with the composer's most intensive period of study of early music taking inspiration from George Frederic Handel, Johann Sebastian Bach and Heinrich Schutz.

Canterbury Choral Society offered its final concert of the current season featuring A German Requiem of Johannes Brahms on Saturday, March 8th, 2013 at the Civic Center Music Hall in downtown Oklahoma City. Featuring guest soprano, Esther Jane Hardenbergh, guest baritone Terrance Brown, the Society was also joined by the Oklahoma City University Chamber Choir and University Singers and the Oklahoma City Philharmonic. Performance Oklahoma presents the Requiem of Johannes Brahms with the Canterbury Choral Society in three special Holy Week broadcasts.

Tune in Saturday, April 19th at 8pm on Classical 88.7-1.