Two tickets to the Chorus pro Musica concert at First Baptist Church, Newton Center on March 16.     

Brahms achieved international fame in his mid-30s with the “German Requiem,” a humanistic commemoration of the dead written in a dramatically new harmonic language. Always an audience favorite, it speaks even more powerfully to us today.

Rather than set the traditional Latin Requiem Mass, Brahms chose passages from the Lutheran Bible that ponder our mortality (“Denn alles Fleisch es ist wie Gras”), express the joys of heaven (“Wie Lieblich sind deine Wohnungen”), and offer consolation and reassurance to the living.