How can one not take comfort in a piece that flouts the concept of finality?
"O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
Instead of the usual prescribed text, Brahms cobbles together an economical series of biblical excerpts. He establishes a comfort level for the secularist. There is no day of judgment. Christ is never mentioned specifically.
More viscerally, however, the universality is in the music - Brahms' glorious insistence on crafting a piece every bit as orchestral as vocal, and in how, hung on a relatively spare text, the vocal writing seems to spring from emotions elemental to humanity.
Relationships between the text and music abound, and in Thursday night's concert baritone soloist Matthias Goerne married them vividly. With finely detailed articulation, he drew a full hall of listeners into a sphere of quiet urgency. Soprano Dorothea Röschmann was steady, but couldn't establish the same rapport from her perch in the chorus.
Large in numbers, the Westminster Symphonic Choir had the firepower aspect of the job covered, though you might have wished for more subtlety in places. The opening proffers one of the most magical concepts in the standard repertoire: that the pulsing bass notes of the orchestra represent all that is earthy, and the voices, when they enter with "Blessed are they that mourn," are in touch with something Beyond. The Westminster choristers are to be applauded for their efforts, but a somewhat thin and youthful sound wasn't quite what you wanted for this moment.
