Proms 2022 Prom 17: Brahms’s A German Requiem

Be here now, they say – but in 2022, and a world in which threats come as fast as wonders, why would you even want to? The Site of an Investigation is Jennifer Walshe’s one-woman response. It’s a massive, multilayered symphonic deep-dive into social media, algorithm madness, streaming playlists and micropollutants – all in search of a very personal path into the open. Conductor Ilan Volkov never takes the obvious perspective and, after the interval, he conducts Brahms’s heartfelt A German Requiem: a service of consolation from a composer without conventional religious faith, but with a limitless depth of compassion. An answer, of sorts? Decide for yourself …

Image: Jennifer Walshe © Blackie Bouffant