Philharmonischer Chor Köln

The Philharmonische Chor Köln combines mourning and consolation in its programme, in which Robert Schumann's Totenmesse (Requiem) meets Mary's pain at the crucifixion of Jesus. Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, on the other hand, was full of joie de vivre when he set the psalm »Wie der Hirsch schreit« (As the stag cries out) to music on his honeymoon.

For Robert Schumann, his fellow composer's work was simply »the highest level that (...) modern church music has ever reached«. In his own »Requiem«, Schumann himself refrains from excessive horror and places the comforting character and the prospect of eternal peace in heavenly paradise at the centre of his setting. And Josef Gabriel Rheinberger, too, in his »Stabat mater«, repeatedly softens the suffering of the Mother of God, Mary, with a very personal musical language that gives hope and promises salvation.