How Brahms composed his German Requiem On Saturday 16 November the Bury Bach Choir will perform Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem accompanied by piano four hands – one piano played by two people, James Recknell and Christopher Moore. The concert will also feature soprano Helen Bailey and baritone Tom Asher. Although his Requiem was conceived and written for a large chorus and full orchestra, Brahms made two piano arrangements, one for two hands, and the four hands version that will accompany the choir at this concert. Each version has equal authority although the performances are inevitably different, and in each version the power and sincerity of Brahms’s invention shine through. Future posts will discuss piano four hands - and our pianists and soloists - in more detail, but this post considers the work itself. As its title suggests, Brahms’s Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) is not a requiem setting in the conventional liturgical Latin tradition of Mozar...