“YOU WALK ABOVE IN THE LIGHT ON SOFT GROUND, BLESSED GENIUSES!”

A program of romantic music and romantic poetry that allows the transitions from this world to the afterlife to flow together: On the memorial weekend for the deceased, on All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day, CHORWERK RUHR traditionally invites you to a concert together with the Bochum Symphony Orchestra – this time with works by Johannes Brahms, Robert Schumann and Peter Cornelius. Brahms’ song of fate is unique in terms of sound painting in its representation of the divine as a human vision of longing. Brahms’ music is able to express more than Hölderlin’s original poem: the composer does not let his work end with the “descent” of the grave. Rather, the music soars wordlessly into the sphere of the “heavenly” – and opens the curtain for two requiem compositions en miniature: for Schumann’s Requiem for Mignon and for the a cappella Requiem by his contemporary Peter Cornelius. Finally – Schumann’s night song based on verses by Friedrich Hebbel: “Welling, swelling night, full of lights and stars…”

JOHANNES BRAHMS (1833-1897) – Tragische Ouvertüre für Orchester
Schicksalslied op. 54 für gemischten Chor und Orchester

PETER CORNELIUS (1824-1874) – Requiem (Seele, vergiss sie nicht) für gemischten Chor a cappella

ROBERT SCHUMANN (1810-1856) 

Requiem für Mignon op. 98b (1849) für Soli, gemischten Chor und Orchester
Nachtlied op. 108 für gemischten Chor und Orchester

Encore

BRAM KORTEKAAS: arrangement of J. Brahms’s Geistliches Lied (opus 30) for mixed choir and strings

On lyrics by Paul Flemming