A German Requiem (Brahms) humanism persists through the work. Brahms purposely omitted Christian dogma. In his correspondence with Carl Reinthaler, when Reinthaler expressed concern over this, Brahms refused to add references to "the redeeming death of the Lord", as Reinthaler described it, such as . In the Bremen performance of the piece, Reinthaler took the liberty of inserting the aria "I know that my Redeemer liveth" from Handel's "Messiah" to satisfy the clergy. In addition to soprano and baritone soloists and mixed chorus, "A German Requiem" is scored for: Since Brahms inserted the fifth movement, the work shows symmetry around the fourth movement, which
B. D. Ackley 1907, he joined Billy Sunday and Homer Rodeheaver, an evangelist team, as secretary-pianist, and traveled with them for eight years. As a composer and editor with the Rodeheaver Company, he wrote over 3,000 Gospel tunes. "I met B. D. Ackley", fellow evangelist, Dr. Oswald J. Smith recalled, "in Buffalo, New York, where he was minister of music in the Churchill Tabernacle when I was preaching there one time. The first hymn I wrote with B. D. Ackley was "Joy In Serving Jesus" in 1931. From the time I met him and his brother, I stopped writing music altogether. They could