A year after his mother died, Johannes Brahms began to compose a requiem in the German language; within three years, the work had grown from a choral piece into a cantata, and then a seven-movement Requiem for chorus, orchestra, and soprano and bass soloists. It is now considered one of his pinnacle works. Unlike other Requiems, the Brahms work was not composed as a mass for the dead, but rather as a consolation for those left behind. The UMS Choral Union and Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra perform this momentous work for the first time in over a decade under the leadership of UMS Choral Union music director Jerry Blackstone.