UMD Symphony Orchestra and UMD Concert Choir Present Brahms' German Requiem Tonight
By: BWW News Desk Nov. 14, 2014
The UMD Symphony Orchestra and UMD Concert Choir, under the direction of Edward Maclary, explore the meaning of life and loss in Brahms' German Requiem tonight, November 14 at 8pm in The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center's Dekelboum Concert Hall.
The program also includes Steven Stucky's Funeral Music for Queen Mary, for Wind Orchestra, an elaboration on music by Henry Purcell; Brahms' motet "Warum ist das Licht gegeben;" and Earl Kim's Where Grief Slumbers, featuring soprano Katie Baughman, a UMD alumna and 2014 UMSO concerto competition winner. About Brahms' German RequiemBrahms composed his grandest choral work, Ein deutsches Requiem, between 1857 and 1868 and took his texts from Martin Luther's translation of the Bible. He conducted the public premiere of the six-movement version in the Bremen Cathedral on April 10, 1868, and the premiere of the work in its final version was given in Leipzig on February 18 of the following year. An agnostic, Brahms chose to set texts in his native vernacular as opposed to the traditional Latin. His Requiem is not a liturgical work, but a personal one. British critic William Mann wrote that nowhere in the Requiem "is there a suggestion of abject entreaty, nor any prayer for the souls of the dead. On the contrary, this is an act of consolation for the living, a hope that all may be well with us when we pass hence." During the time that Brahms wrote the Requiem, he grieved from the loss of his best friend and mentor, Robert Schumann, as well as his mother. Yet he swore that the Requiem was not a memorial to any individual; rather, he had "the whole of humanity" in mind.
Smith Performing Arts Center, the UMD Concert Choir has performed masterworks as diverse as the Bach Christmas Oratorio, the Mahler Symphony #2 and the Verdi Requiem, as well as repertoire by Boulanger, Brahms, Bruckner, Haydn, Ives, Mozart, Ravel and Stravinsky. In addition to its performances on campus, the UMD Concert Choir has, over the past decade, become a regular artistic partner of the major professional symphonies in the region. In November 2013, the ensemble had its first opportunity to collaborate with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, in highly acclaimed performances of Benjamin Britten's War Requiem led by BSO Music Director Marin Alsop. The UMD Concert Choir will perform Bach Cantatas 63 and 110 with the National Symphony Orchestra in December 2014 and the Mozart Mass in C Minor with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in March 2015.
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