Missa sacra / Balthasar-Neumann-Chor und -Ensemble

In a self-characterisation written in 1830, the young Schumann described himself as »religious but without religion«. For many years, religious works did not feature at all in his oeuvre. It was not until 1852 that the Protestant in the Catholic city of Düsseldorf composed his two major sacred works for choir and orchestra, the Missa sacra, Op. 147, and the Requiem, Op. 148. Although Schumann considered both works eminently suitable for concert performance, they are not devoid of the grandeur that is normally a feature of religious works. His wife Clara Schumann was certainly moved when she first heard the mass performed in its entirety in 1862. »You will not believe how beautiful it sounds«, she later wrote in a letter to Johannes Brahms.