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
Music for the Requiem Mass aeternam" (two different settings), and "I heard a voice from heaven." Some composers have written purely instrumental works bearing the title of "requiem", as famously exemplified by Britten's "Sinfonia da Requiem". Hans Werner Henze's "Das Floß der Medusa", written in 1968 as a requiem for Che Guevara, is properly speaking an oratorio; Henze's Requiem is instrumental but retains the traditional Latin titles for the movements. Igor Stravinsky's "Requiem canticles" mixes instrumental movements with segments of the "Introit," "Dies irae," "Pie Jesu," and "Libera me." American composer Dan Forrest has written "Requiem for the Living", a five-movement piece that follows the