Northeast Ohio-trained composer Timothy Adams tells the story of Harriet Tubman—nurse, spy, reformer, and conductor on the Underground Railroad. The “Moses of Her People,” Tubman was relentlessly devoted to saving other people’s lives, at repeated risk to her own. The initial inspiration for Brahms’ Requiem was personal, arising out of the pain of losing his mother. Its consoling opening strains set the tone for the entire work. It is not a prayer for the dead. The freely flowing beauties and joys of Brahms’ masterpiece are for us: they are comfort for the living.