Opéra Royal – Brahms : Requiem

At the age of thirty-five, at the height of his creative powers, Brahms produced a work that perfectly masters the great sound masses of orchestra and choir, for a masterpiece that surpasses all comparable productions and dominates Brahms's oeuvre. The colossal Funeral March at the heart of the work (Denn alles Fleisch) has the force of Wagner's choral pieces, but is imbued with an inner pain that stems from the trials and tribulations of the composer's life during the genesis of this Requiem. In truth, far from being a requiem mass, this is a Trauermusik, a vast work of Romantic funeral music, which takes as its model the early works of Schütz and Bach, and their intense Lutheran faith, to finally arrive at an entirely new composition in the German language, which was a huge success in German-speaking countries. Premiered at the same time as Wagner's Les Maîtres chanteurs, it is undoubtedly as emblematic of the German soul: its immense central fugue forges a wild ascent to the summits, before an apocalyptic vision and the paradisiacal finale.

Raphaël Pichon tackles this monument of sacred music with the strengths of his Pygmalion ensemble, experienced in the immense perspectives of Bach's Passions: a path to eternity.