Brahms' first mentioned the Requiem in a letter to Clara Schumann in which he wrote that he intended the piece to be a sort of...

Brahms' first mentioned the Requiem in a letter to Clara Schumann in which he wrote that he intended the piece to be a sort of German Requiem. Although the Requiem Mass in Roman Catholic liturgy begins with prayers for the dead, A German Requiem focuses on the living, beginning with the text "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted."