According to ninth-year Juneau Symphony orchestra conductor Kyle Wiley Pickett, Johannes Brahms' German Requiem technically isn't a requiem at all.

A requiem, or Mass for the dead, is a set of prayers in Latin liturgy said afer someone dies, but according to Pickett, Brahms' purpose was more for commiseration than formality.

"Brahms really wrote German Requiem after the death of his mother," Pickett explained. "He wrote it as words of comfort for people left behind. So it's not a fire-and-brimstone kind of performance."

This weekend, the Juneau Symphony orchestra and Juneau Symphony Chorus will present Brahms' longest composition, and probably more remarkable piece, "Ein Deutches Requiem" in their spring concert series, which will take place at the Juneau-Douglas High School auditorium.

Pickett also will give his customary pre-concert conversations one hour before each concert. He said the talks are usually well attended, sometimes bringing 300 to 500 people, and he tries to keep them informal - "as little like a college lecture as possible." This weekend, Pickett will discuss the German Requiem's context and nature, as well as provide biographical information about Brahms.

In explaining the "requiem," Philippe Damerval, who will sing baritone solos in the third and sixth movements this weekend, said the first two movements deal mostly with pain and shock, while the third movement introduces the first change from that.

"The solo starts with the theme from the last two movements: 'Teach me or remind me always that I will have an end, that I will die and the number of my days in comparision to you (God) are the width of a hand,'" Damerval explained. "And this is interesting, because both of the baritone solos are a prelude to major fugues. And by major fugues, not just fugues that are extremely important in the piece, but also in a major key. Fugues that are full of hope. ... It's a big change and a very significant movement."

To continue, Damerval described the fourth and fifth movements as signifying paradise, comforting and forgiveness.

"The fourth movement is 'Your dwellings, Lord, are so lovely,'" he translated, "and the fifth movement, which is a marvelous soprano aria, is about how, yes, when you are sad, when you are bereft and you are crying, you need to trust, you need to find comfort and solace in your trust for God, just like a child trusts his mother."

Damerval said the sixth movement contains the same text as that of George Frideric Handel's Messiah base trumpet aria.

"'Behold, I tell you a mystery,'" he translated. "'We shall not all die, but we shall be changed in a moment, in a blinking of an eye.'"

In all, Daverval agreed with Pickett about Brahms' original design.

"The German Requiem is really texts about death and about our reaction about death," he said. "But the actual texts are very significant because they weren't dictated by tradition; they were chosen by Brahms."

Tiffany Hanson, 28, will sing the soprano soloist part, which Pickett noted is "fairly representative of Brahms' mother."

Hanson, a Juneau resident since 2006, teaches voice and piano for her own business as well as the University of Alaska Southeast. She said it was an honor to sing the Requiem purely for its musical prestige.

"You can't pass that up," Hanson said. "If I wasn't singing the solo, I would definitely do the chorus. The music is just fabulous."

In addition to Hanson and Damerval, approximately 75 choristers will accompany the 55-person orchestra. As conductor, Pickett enjoys the fact that some singers have never performed in a choral-orchestral work before and are doing it simply because they want a chance to perform on stage with the orchestra.

"They're kind of die-hard symphony fans and wanted to perform with us, and I think that's great," Pickett said. "I think that's really a neat thing, one of the big positive things about doing the chorus."

Damerval agreed, calling the chorus and orchestra "a very homogenous, solid group."

Pickett encourages the community to hear this famous piece live.

"The combination of the forces of the choir with the orchestra is such a great and amazing sound, and it's never done justice on recordings," he said.

• Contact Neighbors editor Kim Andree at 523-2272 or kimberly.andree@juneauempire.com.