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"... fine sounding, sensitively paced ... with good, fairly chaste choral singing and an especially impressive baritone in Thomas E. Bauer ..." - Gramophone "The Warsaw Philharmonic Choir, highly capable of the most subtle gradations of tone, is always here the centre of creativity, creating the music’s existential continuum and arising to sombre unexpected splendour ... there is some beautiful orchestral playing ..." - BBC Music Magazine "... (the choir) sings beautifully throughout ... Libor and Bauer are excellent singers and the orchestra is also first-class ... Wit conducts with considerable insight and interpretative command ... recording quality is equally first-rate." - International Record Review "... (orchestra and choir) outdo themselves, with some especially fabulous singing that is worth the price alone ... Wit uncovers all sorts of wonderful details in the low strings and winds ... attention to dynamics, especially in the singing, is simply tremendous. This is really moving ... both heartfelt and rewarding." - Classical.Net Antoni Wit and the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir follow their successful recording of Brahms choral music with this highly praised presentation of the longest work in Brahms’s entire oeuvre, A German Requiem. Baritone Thomas E. Bauer and soprano Christiane Libor are the featured soloists on this emotional composition, triggered most likely by the death of Brahms's mother and inspired by the death years earlier of his friend Robert Schumann. Taking inspiration from Bach’s contrapuntal genius but avoiding overt religious tradition, Brahms chose the texts himself, placing an emphasis on an affirmation of life.