Friends of Music will close its season with a free performance of ‘A German Requiem’ by Brahms, conducted by Dr. James Vail and presented by choir and orchestra on Sunday, June 5 at 4 p.m. at Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church, 15821 Sunset. Soloists will be Mariana Ramirez, soprano, and Kevin Dalbey, baritone, with Frances Nobert at the recently installed Rosales organ. Conductor Vail notes that Brahms completed this much admired and beloved work in 1868, at age 35. The first performance took place in Bremen Cathedral, and it became his first resoundingly successful large work, catapulting him to fame. Within the next few years he received requests for dozens of performances throughout the continent, England and America. Brahms, a Lutheran, used the title ‘Ein Deutsches Requiem’ (‘A German Requiem’) to distinguish the work from the many settings of the Latin Requiem of the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead. He chose the words of the seven-movement work himself from the Old and New Testaments of the German Bible. ’Because the intent of the composer was to write a work in the vernacular,’ Vail said, ‘we have chosen to sing it in our vernacular’English.’ A reception in the church’s patio will follow the performance.
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