With his German Requiem, Johannes Brahms rose up to the challenge Robert Schumann had set his young protégé "to direct his magic wand where the massed forces of chorus and orchestra would lend him their power". The result was a masterpiece which deviates from traditional Requiem horrors to address all mankind with a message of hope and comfort. On this recording, acclaimed conductor Hervé Niquet fuses his Flemish Radio Choir and Brussels Philharmonic in a concentrated and intense performance, which brings out the expressive and rhetorical essence of music which is at once grand and intimate.