The colossal Funeral March at the heart of the work (“Denn alles Fleisch”) possesses the power of Wagnerian choral pieces but is imbued with a profound inner sorrow, reflecting the personal trials Brahms faced during the Requiem’s genesis. In truth, far from being a traditional requiem mass, this is a Trauermusik, a vast funeral music with a romantic fervor that draws inspiration from the earlier works of Schütz and Bach, with their intense Lutheran faith, ultimately arriving at an entirely new composition in the German language that achieved immense success in German-speaking countries. Premiering around the same time as Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, it is equally emblematic of the German soul: its immense central fugue drives a frenzied ascent to the heights, leading to an apocalyptic vision, and concluding with a paradisiacal finale.

On the eve of November 11th, a date that connects us to the First World War and its Franco-German cataclysm, how can one not hear in this music a prophetic resonance, a vast ocean of sound that carries away those who sing it?

Raphaël Pichon approaches this monumental sacred work with the forces of his ensemble Pygmalion, well-versed in the immense scope of Bach’s passions—a path to eternity.

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