8 September 2026

Dear singers,

A very warm welcome to everyone last night, thank you for a great first rehearsal. I was delighted to see so many new faces and some 'returners' - thank you for choosing ECS and I hope you enjoy your time with us. The Brahms German Requiem is a beautiful work, and from the excellent start yesterday, and together with our outstanding pianists and soloists, the December concert is going to be one to remember.

I was pleased with the sound and the confident singing for a first rehearsal. Brahms writes such beautiful and singable melodies and none of this work is difficult - our challenge is going to be tuning (which was ok!), sustaining the lines expressively, and matching our vowels/consonants perfectly, and just being very musical. Natural challenges for every choir and all choral music!  My weekly notes are intended to recap what we did, both as a reminder, and for absent singers to keep up, and to list what we will tackle the following week.
 
Some programme notes:
Brahms considered his German Requiem, which used texts from Luther's translations of the Bible, was never intended as a traditional Requiem to be sung as a mass in church. Its rightful and natural home was that of the concert hall, its purpose to encourage the 19thcentury German intellectual whose thinking may have been moving away from earlier religious certainties to focus on a newer 'spirituality', somewhere between nihilism and a simpler, faith-based view of German identity. It spoke to all faiths, but none to the exclusion of the others.
(Roger Moseley)

Listening: Here is a link to a very good recording by The Sixteen, with piano duet accompaniment. As a chamber choir it lacks the power and punch of a large chorus like us, but the smaller forces make a very 'clean' sound which will be useful for reference:

Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/album/6OMs2EumP7JkTq89R5fvan?si=0b67e6a6a43b419d&nd=1&dlsi=5295352a59a044d4

YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Ta_qKB2GY&list=PLq1r4K085lf5SaHrmh4BYIdQc7SRhDX2i

Apple Music:

https://music.apple.com/gb/album/ein-deutsches-requiem/263362993

Practice files: The Requiem is well served by online practice files to help you learn your part. I am still researching the most useful; if anyone has already located a site which is easy to navigate, helpful and preferably free, please let me know. 

Looking ahead: ECS is running a Choral workshop (Saturday November 7th in the afternoon) for the choir which is open to anyone who would like to join us. We run one every term and it is a great opportunity to do a lot of singing to get familiar with the piece and also good additional practise time. This year I have invited soprano Ghislaine Morgan, an experienced singer, choir trainer and vocal coach, to come and work with us on the Brahms, focusing on vocal technique and skills to support our singing in the run up to performance. Details to follow.....

WHAT WE DID ON 08.09.26
After a thorough warming up we opened with p13 in movt 2 to establish a good strong unison sound with 'Denn alles Fleisch'. This opening melody appears several times, with a contrasting section (faster) from bars 74-123, which we took apart to check individual voice parts.  
Movement 4 (page 44): We sang it all but worked on the section up to bar 123. Individual parts are more exposed here and the writing more contrapuntal (moving separately) so we need to match each other! The key changes are more frequent too. We made a good start, well done.

WHAT WE WILL DO ON 15.09.26
Revisit movt 4 (p44) focusing on bars 123 to end.
Movt 1 second section (p20 Die Erlöseten)

Singing German: Some intense work on pronouncing the German text accurately and together will be required both in rehearsal and supported with written notes. If any member has such resources they are happy to share, please let me know, it's always good to have a variety.

Well done everyone, great start, thank you.

Peter