Hartmut Haenchen

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First performed on 10 April 1868 in Bremen Cathedral, in his German Requiem the thirty-five-year-old Johannes Brahms, who had lost his beloved mother in 1865, drew passages from the Epistles of St Paul, the Psalms, the Wisdom books and the Beatitudes, to express not so much the sinner’s fear before the judgement of God as the drama of parting from what one has loved in life, and the anguish at the transience of human things. The dedication to his mother’s memory is only the tip of the iceberg of a deep philosophical conception, formed in a secular rather than a religious sphere: those who need help and consolation are not the dead, but the living.

One of the most renowned choral ensembles on the international scene, the Chorus of Teatro Comunale di Bologna has been directed by Gaetano Riccitelli, Leone Magiera, Fulvio Fogliazza, Fulvio Angius, Piero Monti, Marcel Seminara, Paolo Vero, Lorenzo Fratini, Andrea Faidutti and Alberto Malazzi. Since September 2021 it has been led by Gea Garatti Ansini.

The chorus has taken part in various recordings, including anthology projects with Luciano Pavarotti and June Anderson. It has appeared abroad many times: at the Holland Festival in Amsterdam and the Internationale Maifestspiele in Wiesbaden, at the BBC Proms in the Royal Albert Hall in London (Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Daniele Gatti), at the IV Mstislav Rostropovich International Festival in Moscow, on several tours of Japan, at the Savonlinna Opera Festival and at the Festival Internacional de Santander. In Italy the Chorus has worked with the Ravenna Festival under Riccardo Muti; it took part in a performance of Berlioz’s Te Deum at the PalaDozza in Bologna with Claudio Abbado on the podium; with Michele Mariotti it opened the Lingotto Musica season in Turin. Notable too are its appearances at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro and at the Festival Verdi in Parma, in particular for Stiffelio, a production awarded the special «Franco Abbiati» Prize.