From Mozart to Berlioz to Britten, great composers have poured their souls into settings of the requiem mass. Unique among them is Brahms’s utterly beautiful A German Requiem, written after the death of his mother, with its emphasis not on the dead, but on those left behind; not on loss, but on the joy of remembrance. From its opening phrase, “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted,” to its transporting finale of triumph and tranquility, it touches the hearts of all who hear it.

Written with the intention of being paired with Brahms’s Requiem, Cuban-Canadian composer Luis Ernesto Peña Laguna’s choral work Oraison was created in reaction to the COVID pandemic. Sung in four languages—French, Spanish, Latin, and English—it ends on a note of joyful hope as the chorus sings in French, “We emerge/Barefoot on the rosy meadows/At the first morning sun.”