Brahms: A German Requiem

The Wykeham Consort are performing A German Requiem at Magdalen College Chapel on Saturday 24 October, with Patrick Maxwell conducting. It's Brahms' great choral work, a piece that sits in a particular space between a traditional requiem and a more personal, comforting meditation on death and mourning. Rather than the usual Latin Mass for the Dead, Brahms pulled his texts from the Bible, and the result is a work that speaks as much to the living as it does to the departed.

If you've never heard it, it's a large-scale piece for soloists, choir, and orchestra, and it's one of those works that really needs a proper space to breathe. The chapel is a fitting place for it — a quiet, focused setting that lets the choral lines carry without too much getting in the way. The Wykeham Consort will be taking it on in full, with Maxwell at the helm.

It's a Saturday night in Oxford, and the concert starts at 8.00pm, so it's an easy one to fit around your evening. Tickets are £15, with a £7 concession for those who qualify. The venue is Magdalen College Chapel on Magdalen College High Street, OX1 4AU.