by Daniel Hathaway
This article was originally published on Cleveland.com
CLEVELAND, OHIO — On Saturday, October 24, Lisa Wong and The Cleveland Orchestra Chorus threw themselves a 75th Anniversary party in Mandel Concert Hall at Severance Music Center. Packing the auditorium with an enthusiastic audience that included a significant number of young people, they gifted them with superb performances of works by American composers John Corigliano and Eric Whitacre.
Serenaded on arrival in the Grand Foyer by the Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Chorus, the audience got a taste of the impressive vocal prowess to come, and the adult singers were greeted with applause when the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus very efficiently filed onstage.
The Sacred Veil
Like the exiles in The Book of Isaiah who returned rejoicing to Zion, the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus jubilantly revisited Severance Music Center, the scene of many past triumphs, on Thursday evening, October 28. Chorus director Lisa Wong was on the podium, Johannes Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem was in singers’ hands and on their lips, a pair of Steinways manned by Carolyn Warner and Daniel Overly sat dovetailed at center-stage, and a near-capacity audience witnessed the homecoming.
Whether it was the passing of his mother in February 1865 or the death of Robert Schumann later that same year, no one is certain what motivated Johannes Brahms to compose his large-scale, non-liturgical Requiem in the German language.