Robert Schumann crowned him the Messiah of music at the age of only twenty, but Brahms himself preferred the contemplation of the human in art. His «musical blessing of the sufferers» was written in 1868. The religious latitudinarian composed his work during a period of strong doubts about the institution of the church. Instead of funeral music, the result is a work of consolation for the living, which raises the perennial question of the relationship between transience and eternity. After having been performed in Geneva, Bergamo and Aix-en-Provence, the deeply moving work will finally be heard at the Stadtcasino Basel with Sinfonieorchester Basel and the MDR-Rundfunkchor, conducted by Marek Janowski.