Music for Good Friday

Brahms               Begräbnisgesang
Dvořák                Biblical Songs
Brahms               Nänie
Brahms               Alto Rhapsody
Schumann          Nachtlied
Brahms               Schicksalslied
 
Christoph Altstaedt         Conductor
Belfast Philharmonic Choir
 
This Good Friday, conductor Christoph Altstaedt presents a selection of music that reflects on life, death and the quest for inner peace. 
 
Dvořák’s Biblical Songs are a deeply spiritual conversation between the composer and God, while Schumann's Nachtlied uses the words of poet Friedrich Hebbel to evoke the coming of the night and the mystical splendour of its sky before the gentle onset of sternal sleep. The works are intensely emotional and utterly beautiful. 
 
From his teenage years, Brahms conducted choirs and worked with amateur singers, which makes this selection from his choral works the perfect vehicle for Belfast Philharmonic Choir. The shimmeringly magical Schicksalslied is the best-known of this selection, while Begräbnisgesang translates as ‘Burial Song’ and is a predecessor to the slow marches of the German Requiem. Nänie is a choral lamentation based on a Schiller poem, while choir and soloist join together for the soaring Alto Rhapsody, based on a Goethe poem about romantic failure and the rejuvenation of the spirit through music.