Johannes Brahms

A German Requiem op. 45

With this edition, Bärenreiter presents a new Urtext edition of Johannes Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem. The edition is based on the current state of research and offers a scientifically reliable, clearly designed and consistently practice-oriented musical text based on a critical reassessment of the relevant sources.

For the first time, historical performance practice is systematically included. The basis for this is the evaluation of annotations in scores and performance materials of the first edition on the one hand and of other sources on performance practice on the other. Numerous annotations that are informative for performance practice are evaluated and documented for the first time. The other sources range from contemporary reports and letters to early publications from musical practice. The information obtained from these sources is systematically related to each other and critically weighed against each other.

Among the newly indexed sources is a set of parts discovered during the work on this edition, which was used in the first performance ever with printed orchestral parts – even before the premiere of the final seven-movement version of the work. This was the first time that a set of parts from the first edition could be clearly identified. This set of parts was also demonstrably used in a performance under Brahms' direction.

The extensive accompanying texts provide an introduction to the history of the creation and impact of the German Requiem, clearly present the sources as well as editorial and practical questions of performance, and provide comprehensible reasons for the editorial decisions made.

Thus, the new edition by Michael Ostrzyga offers all the prerequisites for a scientifically sound and historically informed study of Johannes Brahms' German Requiem.