Johannes Brahms:  Requiem

Excerpt from Requiem “How Lovely Is They Dwelling Place”
 - Live Performance
Greater Hazleton Oratorio Society, Singers Guild of Scranton
Robert L. Edwards
- 1985

(If the performance excerpt does not begin to play automatically within 30 seconds, you can click this link.
 Brahms Requiem excerpt .)

Many people assume Brahms was an old man when he wrote his Requiem. They often see him as a fat guy with a cigar and beard, stretching his arms to reach the piano keyboard. In reality, Brahms was a handsome younger man in his 30s when he wrote the Requiem, years before he wrote his first symphony.

Instead of the traditional Latin text, Brahms chose passages from the Bible as translated by Martin Luther. The majority of the Requiem was composed three years after his mother's death. The fifth movement was added after the official premiere in 1868.

In order to provide permanent documentation of the important sociological and musical contributions of the Greater Hazleton Oratorio Society, Singers’ Guild of Scranton and Sinfonia da Camera to the lives of residents in Northeastern Pennsylvania, some of the 1977-1986 live performance analog recordings of these community groups were rescued, restored, and converted to a digital format. Those restorations and the performance excerpts that appear on this website are intended as historical documents not as an entertainment product. The copying or dissemination of these excerpts is strictly prohibited.

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