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Ein Deutsches Requiem (written by Grace Castillo)

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Here's a blog post written by a freshman in the Glee Club, Grace Castillo. Read it below!

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 Even though it had been snowing all day, Woolsey hall was nearly filled on Saturday night. Friends, relatives, and community members were all waiting to hear Johannes Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem. The Glee Club had already performed the piece on our recent tour to Spain, and we were all especially excited to sing it back in our familiar Woolsey Hall with the wonderful supers (alternates), and the YSO.

As we waited backstage, half of the group on the staircase, our tuxes and dresses rustling, I thought ahead to the piece we were about to perform. We had worked hard on each of the seven movements during the last few months in rehearsals, and I was eager to finally share it with the wider Yale community. More than anything though, I was excited to have my relatives, who were sitting in the first balcony, hear the group that had been such a big part of my freshman year.

As we filed onto the risers, I thought back to all of the times that people—Jeff and many members of the Glee Club— had reiterated that Brahms’ requiem was as much for the living as it was for the dead. It was a thought that stayed with me from the first to the last ‘selig.’ We created the music as a group, and I had come to consider the members of the Glee Club no longer as friendly acquaintances but as dear friends. This feeling of cohesion, combined with the presence of my loved ones in the audience, amplified not only my enjoyment of the music, but also its message of togetherness and a shared human experience. Though it probably comes across as cheesy, I mean it in an earnest and heartfelt way—the Brahms Requiem encompasses not just the beauty of music, but the reason we perform any music at all.


 After the concert reached its close, groups of friends and family members congratulated one another on a job well done. The post-concert excitement assured me that things couldn’t have gone any better, and once again reminded me of how happy I am to be in a group like YGC. My grandparents told me that they’d loved the concert (I believed them, even though saying such things is an important part of their job as grandparents), and we headed to the reception.

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Until next time!


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