The Toronto Mendelssohn Choir explores themes of love, loss, and solace with Brahms: A German Requiem. Artistic Director Jean-Sébastien Vallée conducts the choir in the work, performed in German with Joachim Linckelmann’s revised orchestration.
Opening the program, the choir will perform the world premiere of ECHO, a new commission by Canadian composer Stephanie Martin, a work that harnesses the powerful combination of the Choir and orchestra to complement the Requiem.
The performance features soloists Russell Braun, baritone, and Charlotte Siegel, soprano, with the Musicians of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony.
Brahms’ German Requiem
Brahms’ A German Requiem, to Words of the Holy Scriptures, Op. 45 (Ein deutsches Requiem, nach Worten der heiligen Schrift) was composed between 1865 and 1868. The large scale work for choir and orchestra with soprano and baritone soloists is made up of seven movements, and represents one of the composer’s longest and largest-scale works.
The Requiem is sacred, but not official church music, and breaks with the tradition of the Latin Requiem first and foremost by its setting in the German language.
The composer did not make it explicit, but his mother died in 1865, and many scholars believe that the event may have inspired the work. In the second movement, he incorporates material he had written in 1854, the year when Brahms moved to Düsseldorf to help Clara Schumann after Robert’s mental health collapse.
Brahms had initially written the work in six movements, adding a seventh in 1868 after its successful premiere earlier that year.
Brahms wrote the libretto himself, incorporating text from the German Lutheran Bible. In contrast with Latin requiem traditions, he focuses on the living who are left to mourn, and leaves out Christian dogma.
Canadian Composer Stephanie Martin
Canadian composer and musician Stephanie Martin is known for her choral and instrumental compositions, which have been performed across Canada and internationally. She is Professor Emeritus and Senior Scholar of music at York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance, and Design, and for the 2025/26 season, serves as composer-in-residence for the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir.
She is also conductor emeritus of Pax Christi Chorale, and past director of music at the historic church of Saint Mary Magdalene in Toronto.
Her compositions have been commissioned and performed by ensembles across North America, including The Grand Philharmonic Choir under conductor Mark Vuorinen, with a Requiem mass Requiem for All Souls that premiered in San Diego in 2017 (Ruben Valenzuela, conductor) and Missa Chicagoensis (2017), which premiered at St. John Cantius parish in Chicago.
Toronto Mendelssohn Choir presents A German Requiem
The concert takes place on two dates, and in two venues.
- Wednesday, November 5, 2025, 7:30 p.m. at the George Weston Recital Hall, Meridian Arts Centre
- Friday, November 7, 2025, 7:30 p.m. at Koerner Hall, TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning
With:
Jean-Sébastien Vallée, conductor
Russell Braun, baritone
Charlotte Siegel, soprano
Stephanie Martin, composer
Toronto Mendelssohn Choir
Musicians of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony
- Find concert details and tickets [HERE].
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