Brahms

The Berlin Radio Choir sings major choral works by Johannes Brahms. There was no point in his life when Johannes Brahms did not take an active interest in choral music. It was an interest that he evinced not only as a choral conductor in Detmold, Hamburg and Vienna but also as a composer who bequeathed to posterity a vast number of secular and sacred choral works.

Among his principal compositions for chorus and orchestra were not only his German Requiem but also his Song of Destiny op. 54 (1871) for mixed chorus and orchestra. This was arguably the most significant of all Romantic settings of a poem by Friedrich Hölderlin and has now been selected by the Berlin Radio Choir for a CD that explores the whole vast range of Brahms's choral writing. Under the direction of Gijs Leenaars, the Choir - heard here in various formations - is joined in some of these works by the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester of Berlin.

Gijs Leenaars has been Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of Rundfunkchor Berlin since 2015. Ever since he successfully cooperated with outstanding conductors such as Simon Rattle, Christian Thielemann, John Eliot Garniner and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Born in 1978 in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Leenaars is regarded as one of the most exciting choral conductors of the younger generation. He studied the piano, choral and orchestral conducting as well as singing in Nijmegen and Amsterdam. Directly upon completing his studies he embarked on a collaboration with the Netherlands Radio Choir (Groot Omroepkoor) in Hilversum. From 2012 to 2015 he was the ensemble's Principal Conductor,