I know that my Redeemer liveth was written at the suggestion of Robin Kimber, conductor of Epsom Choral Society, to be performed with Brahms’ A German Requiem and is a setting of the words used by Handel in Messiah; 2009, the year of the commission, was the 250th anniversary of Handel’s death.

A German Requiem was probably not conceived as a liturgical work and Brahms avoided any reference to Christ or life after death. However, the first performance of six movements was given in 1868 in Bremen Cathedral on Good Friday and in order to compensate for the absence of texts associated with Christ, the music director, Karl Reinthaler, interpolated Handel’s aria, ‘I know that my Redeemer liveth’, into the Requiem.

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