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Brahms’s Requiem

Brahms wanted to write a requiem mass that spoke directly to humans, not to God, like what Luther did with his German Bible roughly 300 years earlier. In other words, the title refers to the language and not the audience; Brahms himself said that he would have gladly called it ”a human requiem”, and the work’s persisting tender, sympathetic humanism is apparent right from the very first line: ”Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.”.  Thursday’s concert will be livestreamed on Play.

When Brahms thought about creating a requiem, he could have chosen the same route that Berlioz had previously taken, and as Verdi would later take, and written colossal work that required large resources. However, his talent did not lie in composing on the grand scale and even the symphonies are written for a rather moderate orchestra. Brahms never gave us an opera and he worked constantly to convey as much as possible with as few expressions and resources as possible.

A German Requiem is Brahms’s longest work and you can find traces of the music as early as 1861 when Brahms started composing a funeral cantata in two movements. The idea of setting the music to selected parts of Luther’s German Bible translation, instead of the regular mass in Latin, may stem from a conversation with his colleague Robert Schumann. Several years later, Brahms learned through Schumann’s widow Clara, that Schumann had intended to compose a funeral mass with the same title. But it is only after Brahms’s beloved mother dies in 1865 that the work on A German Requiem gains momentum, and for Brahms it was a grieving process. The composer stated in a conversation that he could very well call the work “Ein menschliches Requiem”, A Human Requiem.

Brahms’ A German Requiem differs from the traditional requiem. Instead of grieving the dead, the work is very much aimed at the living in order to provide solace and spiritual relief. For him, it was important to avoid the custom of a grand “Dies Irae”, day of wrath. Work on the composition was not very easy, and the German requiem only reached its definitive form in 1869, when it was premièred in Leipzig.

We are very pleased to welcome Matthias Goerne, a native of Weimar, back to Berwaldhallen. Goerne is one of the most appreciated baritone soloists currently performing and the collaboration between the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Harding and Goerne has previously resulted in a critically acclaimed Wagner project released on CD by Harmonia Mundi. Equally welcome is Belgian soprano Sophie Karthäuser, who is highly sought after on the world’s major stages. Karthäuser is just as comfortable with Monteverdi as with Mozart, Debussy and Brahms.

Brahms was a great humorist and he wrote to a friend about the harp’s first movement: “I really made an effort to conceal the harp’s first contribution to the requiem, so that the attention-seeking instrument would not stand out as a mere effect.” A German Requiem is a much loved, intense, work that is performed frequently all over the world.

Text: Thomas Roth


SWEDISH RADIO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA dot SWEDISH RADIO CHOIR dot 2018/2019
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Participants

 

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The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra is a multiple-award-winning ensemble renowned for its high artistic standard and stylistic breadth, as well as collaborations with the world’s finest composers, conductors, and soloists. It regularly tours all over Europe and the world and has an extensive and acclaimed recording catalogue.

Daniel Harding has been Music Director of the SRSO since 2007, and since 2019 also its Artistic Director. His tenure will last throughout the 2024/2025 season. Two of the orchestra’s former chief conductors, Herbert Blomstedt and Esa-Pekka Salonen, have since been named Conductors Laureate, and continue to perform regularly with the orchestra.

The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, and is a cornerstone of Swedish public service broadcasting. Its concerts are heard weekly on the Swedish classical radio P2 and regularly on national public television SVT. Several concerts are also streamed on-demand on Berwaldhallen Play and broadcast globally through the EBU.

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32 professional choristers make up the Swedish Radio Choir: a unique, dynamic instrument hailed by music-lovers and critics all over the world. The Swedish Radio Choir performs at Berwaldhallen, concert hall of the Swedish Radio, as well as on tours all over the country and the world. Also, they are heard regularly by millions of listeners on Swedish Radio P2, Berwaldhallen Play and globally through the EBU.

The award-winning Latvian conductor Kaspars Putniņš was appointed Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Choir in 2020. Since January 2019, its choirmaster is French orchestral and choral conductor Marc Korovitch, with responsibility for the choir’s vocal development.

The Swedish Radio Choir was founded in 1925, the same year as Sweden’s inaugural radio broadcasts, and gave its first concert in May that year. Multiple acclaimed and award-winning albums can be found in the choir’s record catalogue. Late 2023 saw the release of Kaspars Putniņš first album with the choir: Robert Schumann’s Missa sacra, recorded with organist Johan Hammarström.

Daniel Harding is Music and Artistic Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, with whom in 2022 he celebrated his 15-year anniversary. In the 2014/2015 season, he devised and curated the celebrated Interplay Festival, featuring concerts and related inspirational talks with renowned artists and academics. As Artistic Director, he continues this type of influential programming. Harding is also Conductor Laureate of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, with whom he has worked for over 20 years, and Music Director of Youth Music Culture, The Greater Bay Area in China. The 2024/2025 season will be his first as Music Director at the Academia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome.

Harding is a regular visitor to the world’s foremost orchestras, including the Wiener Philharmoniker, Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Staatskapelle Dresden and the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala. In the US, he has appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony. A renowned opera conductor, he has led acclaimed productions at the Teatro alla Scala Milan, Wiener Staatsoper, Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, and at the Aix-en-Provence and Salzburg Festivals. He was Music Director of the Orchestre de Paris, the Anima Mundi festival of Pisa, and Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Daniel Harding tours regularly with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, performing at prestigious venues all over Europe and the world, and has recorded several acclaimed and award-winning albums with the orchestra. His tenure as Music and Artistic Director will last throughout the 2024/2025 season. “It is increasingly rare that the relationship between a conductor and an orchestra not only lasts for more than a decade, but keeps growing,” he says about working with the orchestra.

In 2002, Harding was awarded the title Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Government, and in 2017 nominated to the position Officier des Arts et des Lettres. In 2012, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. In 2021, he was appointed Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire. Daniel Harding grew up in Oxford, England, and played trumpet before taking up conducting in his late teens. He is also, since 2016, a qualified airline pilot.

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Chief conductor of the Jeune Choeur de Paris, he started a collaboration with the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart in 2013 (including a recording of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé), and also works regularly with the Chœur de Radio-France and the Choeur Accentus since 2014, for tours, radio performances, recordings, preparations and A Cappella concerts. He collaborates with many personalities, such as Sir Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Daniele Gatti, Louis Langrée, Stéphane Denève, Daniel Harding, Laurence Equilbey, L. G. Alarcon… He has also conducted the WDR Rundfunkchor in 2016. In July 2016, he has prepared both the SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart and the NDR Chor for Berlioz’s Romeo et Juliette. In 2017, he has participate to the opening of the Seine Musical conducting the choir accentus and in 2018, he starts a collaboration with the Croatian Radio Choir. Korovitch works for many festivals: the Mozartwoche in Salzburg, Recontres Musicales d’Evian, the Festival de Radio-France in Montpellier or the festival Mozart in New York.

Concert length: 1 h 15 min

The concert on October 17th will be camera recorded.
The concert on October 18th will be streamed live  on this website.