A German Requiem (Brahms) the traditional Roman Catholic Requiem Mass, which employs a standardized text in Latin, the text is derived from the German Luther Bible. Brahms's first known use of the title "Ein deutsches Requiem" was in an 1865 letter to Clara Schumann in which he wrote that he intended the piece to be ""eine Art deutsches Requiem"" (a sort of German Requiem). Brahms was quite moved when he found out years later that Robert Schumann had planned a work of the same name. "German" refers primarily to the language rather than the intended audience. Brahms told Carl Martin Reinthaler, director of music
A German Requiem (Brahms) use of a piccolo, clarinets, one pair of horns, trumpets, a tuba, and timpani throughout the work, as well as the use of harps at the close of both the first and seventh movements, most striking in the latter because at that point they have not played since the middle of the second movement. "A German Requiem" is unified compositionally by a three-note motif of a leap of a major third, usually followed by a half-step in the same direction. The first exposed choral entry presents the motif in the soprano voice (F–A–B). This motif pervades every movement and much