Bristol Choral Society, New Bristol Sinfonia, Adrian Partington, Njabulo Madlala, Hye-Youn Lee

The opening words of the Brahms' Requiem could almost serve as its motto: 'Blessed are they who mourn for they shall be comforted'. Rather than a Latin 'Mass for the Dead' it's a meditation on death for the living, suffused with almost unbearable longing compounded by hope and despair, sweetness and grief, intimacy and grandeur.

Schumann's widow Clara described it as 'an immense work that takes hold of a person's whole being like very little else'.