The Songs of Brahms ~ 10

SOPHIE RENNERT
GRAHAM JOHNSON
 CONTENTS

TRACK LISTING
page 3

COMMENTARIES, SUNG TEXTS & TRANSLATIONS
page 5

PERFORMER BIOGRAPHIES
page 39

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 The Songs of Johannes Brahms ~ 10
1 Liebestreu Op 3 No 1 ROBERT REINICK . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [2'36]
2 Lied Op 3 No 4 FRIEDRICH BODENSTEDT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [1'50]
3 Murrays Ermordung Op 14 No 3 JOHANN GOTTFRIED HERDER translated from traditional Scottish . . . . . . . . . . [2'34]
4 Von ewiger Liebe Op 43 No 1 AUGUST HEINRICH HOFFMANN VON FALLERSLEBEN translated from trad. Wendish [5'06]
5 Die Mainacht Op 43 No 2 LUDWIG HÖLTY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [4'07]
6 Von waldbekränzter Höhe Op 57 No 1 GEORG FRIEDRICH DAUMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [2'33]
7 Unbewegte laue Luft Op 57 No 8 GEORG FRIEDRICH DAUMER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [3'39]
8 Sommerabend Op 84 No 1 HANS SCHMIDT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [2'33]
9 Der Kranz Op 84 No 2 HANS SCHMIDT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [1'42]
bl In den Beeren Op 84 No 3 HANS SCHMIDT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [1'50]
Zwei Gesänge für eine Altstimme, Viola und Klavier Op 91 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [13'08]
bm Gestillte Sehnsucht FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [6'57]
bn Geistliches Wiegenlied EMANUEL GEIBEL translated from Spanish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [6'11]
bo Dort in den Weiden steht ein Haus Op 97 No 4 TRADITIONAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [1'39]

Zigeunerlieder Op 103 HUGO CONRAT translated from traditional Hungarian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [13'02]

bp He, Zigeuner, greife in die Saiten ein! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [1'00]
bq Hochgetürmte Rimaflut, wie bist du so trüb . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [1'11]
br Wisst ihr, wann mein Kindchen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [1'42]
bs Lieber Gott, du weißt, wie oft bereut ich hab . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [1'30]
bt Brauner Bursche führt zum Tanze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [1'40]
bu Röslein dreie in der Reihe blühn so rot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [1'55]
cl Kommt dir manchmal in den Sinn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [2'34]
cm Rote Abendwolken ziehn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [1'27]
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 cn Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer Op 105 No 2 HERMANN LINGG . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [3'56]
co Klage Op 105 No 3 TRADITIONAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [2'35]
cp Ständchen Op 106 No 1 FRANZ THEODOR KUGLER . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [1'55]
from 49 Deutsche Volkslieder WoO33 TRADITIONAL
cq Da unten im Tale No 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [2'31]
cr Es war eine schöne Jüdin No 9 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [2'34]
cs Der Reiter spreitet seinen Mantel aus No 23 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [1'44]
ct Es war ein Markgraf überm Rhein No 29 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [3'26]
cu Du mein einzig Licht No 37 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [1'22]
dl Es steht ein Lind No 41 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [2'52]

SOPHIE RENNERT mezzo-soprano

GRAHAM JOHNSON piano
LAWRENCE POWER viola bm bn

Recorded in All Saints’ Church, East Finchley, London, on 29 –31 October 2018
Recording Engineer DAVID HINITT
Recording Producer MARK BROWN
Piano STEINWAY & SONS
Piano Technician NIGEL POLMEAR
Booklet Editor TODD HARRIS
Executive Producers SIMON PERRY, PERDITA ANDREW
P & C Hyperion Records Ltd, London, MMXX
Front photograph by Sim Canetty-Clarke

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 T HIS ALBUM IS THE TENTH AND LAST of a series that presents the entire piano-accompanied songs of Johannes Brahms.
As such it is a companion to the series undertaken by Hyperion for the songs of Schubert, Schumann, Fauré and Strauss.
Brahms, like Schumann, but unlike Schubert with his much greater output, issued the majority of his songs in opus
number groupings. There is a tendency in modern scholarship to suggest that he envisaged, or at least hoped for,
performances of his songs in their original opus number groupings. Of course, one cannot deny that some planning
(though of a rather variable kind) went into the arrangement of these song bouquets (the composer’s own expression)
for publication. Good order and cohesion in printed form (as in an anthology where poems are arranged to be discovered
by the reader in a certain sequence) do not automatically transfer to the world of the recital platform where one
encounters a host of different practical problems, casting (male or female singer) and key-sequences (high or low
voice) among them.
Printed poetry collections are as lovingly assembled as an opus of a composer’s varied settings, but this does not mean
the poems therein are designed to be read aloud from cover to cover: the compiler of these volumes, whether or not the
poet himself, would expect items to be selected by the reader according to taste or need. The anthology (or indeed opus
number) might be likened to a well-ordered jewel case from which precious items may be extracted for use, depending
on the occasion: the wearing in public of every item therein on a single occasion would be both impractical and vulgar.
There is little evidence, especially from concert practice of the time (where items from the Schubert and Schumann
cycles were often ruthlessly excerpted), that Brahms’s publications were conceived within a spirit of cyclic unity that
called for an integral performance of the entire group.
Each disc of the Hyperion edition takes a journey through the career of Johannes Brahms. The songs are not quite sung
in strict chronological sequence (Brahms had a way of including earlier songs in later opus numbers) but they do appear
here more or less in the order that the songs were presented to the world. Each recital represents a different journey
through the repertoire (and thus through Brahms’s life).
We can imagine certain (but by no means all) of these groups of songs grouped and published together for various
reasons, but it is quite unclear whether Brahms was making a point thereby. Far from dreaming of complete evenings
of his songs in public performance, he preferred to hear no more than three of his own songs in any one concert. This
astonishing information comes from an invaluable book of essays: K Hamilton and N Loges, eds: Brahms in the Home
and the Concert Hall. Between Private and Public Performance (Cambridge: CUP). The conventions of music in the
home, where so many songs were first heard and discussed in an environment of lively and cultivated enthusiasm, did
not include listeners buckling down in respectful silence to a substantial sequence of songs, as if they were at a public
concert. Brahms seems to have been happiest hearing his songs as Hausmusik and surrounded by supportive infor-
mality—and I dare say Schubert would have said the same about the Schubertiads. The present-day hunger for cycles—
hidden, implicit, unknown or concealed—seeks to feed the appetite for a kind of recital format that is favoured, perhaps
over-favoured, in the twenty-first century, but was almost unknown in the nineteenth.

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 It is clear, however, that certain opus numbers have long been more usually presented in their entirety, and this album
has two such examples: excerpts from Zigeunerlieder, Op 103, are more rare in recital than performances of the whole
work, and once a singer has found a violist skilled enough to rehearse and play one of the two songs of Op 91, it would
be a foolish waste of resources in a concert not to perform both pieces. These are rare examples of Brahms songs that
were clearly meant to be heard in the totality of their original groupings.
* * *
1 Liebestreu True love
Carpentras, France. B minor (original key E flat minor),  Sehr langsam
Op 3 No 1, composed in Hamburg in January 1853, published in December 1853. The song’s autograph is in the Bibliothèque Inguimbertine,

„O versenk, o versenk dein Leid, mein Kind, ‘Oh drown, oh drown your grief, my child,
In die See, in die tiefe See!“ in the sea, the fathomless sea!’
Ein Stein wohl bleibt auf des Meeres Grund, A stone may stay on the ocean bed,
Mein Leid kommt stets in die Höh’. my grief will always surface.
„Und die Lieb’, die du im Herzen trägst, ‘And the love you bear in your heart,
Brich sie ab, brich sie ab, mein Kind!“ pluck it out, pluck it out, my child!’
Ob die Blum’ auch stirbt, wenn man sie bricht: Though a flower will die when it is plucked:
Treue Lieb’ nicht so geschwind. faithful love will not fade so fast.
„Und die Treu’, und die Treu’, ’s war nur ein Wort, ‘Faithful, faithful—is but a word,
In den Wind damit hinaus!“ away with it to the winds!’
O Mutter und splittert der Fels auch im Wind, Though a rock, O mother, will split in the wind,
Meine Treue, die hält ihn aus. my faithful love will withstand it.
ROBERT REINICK (1805 –1852)
This is Brahms’s debut as a composer of lieder, and what an extraordinary beginning it is!
This song astounded Joachim and Schumann, and a fine performance astonishes us even
today. Putting all his cards on the table, the young composer, already lionized, indicates that
he has begun as he intends to continue. A great deal that is familiar about Brahms is already
present: an introspective mood in a dark, minor-key tonality; a scenario that encompasses
depths of the ocean; triplets clashing with duplets. It is impossible to imagine this work as
having been composed by anyone else: the song owes nothing to Mendelssohn, Schumann
or Franz, and little to Loewe apart from its exploration of a lower tessitura in both voice and
piano. Even in a short work like this, we can hear the rhetoric and drama of Brahms’s barn-
storming early piano sonatas, when the imposing first piano concerto was already in the bud.
First we hear the push and pull between the piano’s left-hand quavers, supporting those of
the anxious mother, then the dreamy (‘träumerisch’ is the marking) replies of the daughter,
higher in tessitura, and with a smooth and untrammelled accompaniment. Fragments of a
ROBERT REINICK

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 canon between voice and piano—indications of the young composer’s strict schooling—immediately set up the idea
of a finger-wagging lecture. The younger woman is a faithful paragon, her idealism a foil for parental negativity. The song
begins very slowly, but as the two characters gradually get into their respective strides—the daughter radiant and then
exultant, the mother increasingly infuriated at being contradicted and consumed by bitterness—there is a wind-up of
tension via faster tempi. This is more in the style of a Russian romance than a lied, and a Russian translation of the song
would sound very convincing; it is little wonder that Brahms would later feel so at home with a great deal of Slavic poetry
(see also the next song on this recording). Robert Reinick’s lyrics are more often sunny and somewhat banal, but the
mood of Liebestreu is as far as can be imagined from most settings of this poet (Schumann’s genial Op 36 set, for
example, extolling Rhineland virtues, is the poet’s best claim to musical durability). Long after Brahms had left Reinick
behind him, the musical mood of Liebestreu became typical of the enigmatic commentaries on failed love (often
encompassing conversations between mothers and daughters) to which the composer would return for the rest of his
life. An assertive depth of feeling and an unashamed fondness for the epic and larger-than-life are already evident in this
very first song. In short, here are quite a number of the things that have long made listeners either love Brahms, or hate
him.
2 Lied aus dem Gedicht ‘Ivan’ Song from ‘Ivan’
C minor (original key E flat minor),  Mit feurigem Schwung
Op 3 No 4, composed in Göttingen in July 1853, published in December 1853. The song’s autograph is in private hands.

Weit über das Feld durch die Lüfte hoch Far over the hills, high through the air,
Nach Beute ein mächtiger Geier flog. a mighty vulture searched for its prey.
Am Stromesrande im frischen Gras By the river bank in the fresh grass,
Eine junge weißflüglige Taube saß; a young dove with white wings sat;
O verstecke dich, Täubchen, im grünen Wald! Ah hide yourself, little dove, in the green forest!
Sonst verschlingt dich der lüsterne Geier bald! Else the lecherous vulture will soon devour you!
Eine Möwe hoch über der Wolga fliegt, A seagull flies high over the Volga,
Und Beute spähend im Kreise sich wiegt. hovering in circles, in search of prey.
O halte dich, Fischlein, im Wasser versteckt, Ah, little fish, stay hidden in the water,
Daß dich nicht die spähende Möwe entdeckt! so that the sharp-eyed gull cannot find you!
Und steigst du hinauf, so steigt sie herab If you surface, it will swoop down
Und macht dich zur Beute und führt dich zum Grab. and seize you as prey and bring you to the grave.
Ach, du grünende feuchte Erde du! Ah, you verdant soft earth!
Tu dich auf, leg mein stürmisches Herz zur Ruh’! Open up, and lay my tempestuous heart to rest!
Blaues Himmelstuch mit der Sternlein Zier, O blue cloth of heaven, studded with little stars,
O trockne vom Auge die Träne mir! ah, dry the tears from my eyes!
Hilf, Himmel, der armen, der duldenden Maid! Help, O heaven, the poor suffering maiden!
Es bricht mir das Herz vor Weh und Leid! My heart is breaking with grief and pain!
FRIEDRICH BODENSTEDT (1819 –1892)

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 In this seldom-performed song, praised for its originality by Robert Schumann from the asylum in Endenich, we have
a Loewe-like ballad with a Russian twist (mention of the Volga) together with hints of sexual obsession and revenge. It is
interesting to return to the Gedichte of Bodenstedt, once a famous poet and now almost completely forgotten, to fathom
the full plot of the story. Brahms sets two sections from a long narrative poem: Ivan, Son of the Starost—poetic colour
sketches from Russia. It is a Marriage of Figaro triangle with a cast shorn of courtly charm: a peasant couple, Ivan
and Masha, are in love, but Count Büstrow has a gimlet eye for Masha’s beauty. Unlike Susanna in Mozart’s opera, Masha
finds the Count irresistible, and Ivan vows a terrible revenge. The Count thinks he has tricked Ivan into going away so
he can have his way with the girl, but the younger man lies in wait and kills them both with an axe; their bodies are
found floating in the river. (There is another Brahms song, composed over thirty years later, with a similar background
of jealousy and murder: Verrat, Op 105 No 5.) The first twelve lines of the poem are the thoughts of the vengeful Ivan
who thinks of his Masha as a vulnerable dove or a little fish, and damns the Count as a lustful vulture and a gull hunting
for prey in the river. What is not obvious is that the final six lines of the song are the thoughts of the guilt-ridden Masha
as she lies dead in the river. The text telescoped by the composer’s editing is thus a mishmash, but it need not cause
unnecessary confusion as long as the listener grasps the broad-brush scenario of sex, betrayal, guilt and death, all taking
place somewhere in the barren expanses of the Russian steppes.
The music is strong on gesture and excitement, weaker on melodic inspiration, but that is regularly the way with such
narratives and, as is often the case with German ballads, the vocal line is largely shadowed and doubled by the piano.
The main image is that of the chase, a bird of prey (the Count) swooping with ascending arpeggios on the vulnerable
Masha, and the revengeful Ivan swooping in turn on the guilty couple, with all that doubling and shadowing of voice and
piano a metaphor for the hunt as he keeps them fixed in his sight. The sheer physical energy of the young Brahms is on
display here, and the result is excitement for performer and listener alike. The desperately sad final two bars—Masha’s
last gasp as it were—are not at all the way we might have expected such a song of vengeance to end. Such a dying fall in
defiance of the listeners’ more blood-curdling expectations is already a Brahmsian signature.
3 Murrays Ermordung The assassination of Moray
Op 14 No 3, composed in Hamburg in January 1858, published in January 1861. The song’s autograph is in the Staatsbibliothek Preussicher
Kulturbesitz, Berlin. D minor (original key E minor),  Con moto
O Hochland und o Südland! Ye highlands and ye lowlands,
Was ist auf euch geschehn! what have you suffered!
Erschlagen der edle Murray, The Earl of Moray is slain,
Werd’ nie ihn wiedersehn. I shall not see him again.
O weh dir! weh dir, Huntley! Woe, O woe be to thee, Huntly!
So untreu, falsch und kühn, So faithless, false and audacious,
Sollst ihn zurück uns bringen, you were to bring him back to us,
Ermordet hast du ihn. but you have murdered him.

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 Ein schöner Ritter war er, He was a bonny knight,
In Wett- und Ringelauf; racing his steed at the ring;
Allzeit war unsres Murray the crown was ever ready
Die Krone obendrauf. to be placed upon his head.
Ein schöner Ritter war er He was a bonny knight,
Bei Waffenspiel und Ball; in armed combat and playing at ball;
Es war der edle Murray the noble Moray was in every way
Die Blume überall. the flower of all our knights.
Ein schöner Ritter war er He was a bonny knight
In Tanz und Saitenspiel; who danced and played the lute;
Ach, daß der edle Murray but alas, he was
Der Königin gefiel. the Queen’s lover.
O Königin, wirst lange O Queen, you will look a long time
Sehn über Schlosses Wall, over the castle rampart,
Eh’ du den schönen Murray before you see the bonny Moray
Siehst reiten in dem Tal. ride along the valley.
JOHANN GOTTFRIED HERDER (1744–1803) translated from a traditional Scottish folk song
Eric Sams remarks that this song has an ‘operatic scope’, bearing in mind Brahms never composed an opera. The
barnstorming confidence heard in this music is characteristic of some of the earlier songs culminating in the great
Schöne Magelone cycle of the early 1860s—like Peter of Provence in that cycle, the composer, a young minstrel from
Hamburg, sets forth into the outside world determined to win fame and fortune. The text is Scottish, one of the many
lyrics from that famous collection of British folk poetry, Percy’s Reliques (1765), that were translated and published by
Herder in his Stimmen der Völker in Liedern, a collection owned and treasured by Brahms. The lyric of the The bonnie
Earl o’ Moray, well known as one of Benjamin Britten’s most effective folk-song arrangements (1943), is often taken
to have something to do with Mary, Queen of Scots, and Herder mistakenly steers his readers in that direction. In fact,
Moray’s murder by the Earl of Huntly took place in 1592, five years after Mary’s execution, and involved the duplicity
of Mary’s son, the slithery James VI (later King of England and Ireland as James I). The angry reaction attributed to
the same king in this lyric is reminiscent of the hypocritical anger of Henry II after the murder of Thomas Becket. In
any case, we need not look too far into the past to find executions of rivals and critics by proxy means, followed by full-
scale denial and the sanctimonious labelling of the crimes as an unsolicited outrage. The dotted rhythms huff and puff
impressively (without quite achieving a Scotch snap), and the whole thing has a touch of the modal and archaic, just
enough to suggest the sixteenth century. Robert Franz, in his Op 23, had already published six settings of folk texts, but
Brahms’s intention in this Op 14 compendium of eight songs with folk-song texts is bolder and more wide-ranging. The
message seems to be: ‘Here is a young man of the people finding inspiration for his lieder in decidedly more down-to-
earth places than his highfalutin predecessors.’

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 4 Von ewiger Liebe Eternal love


Op 43 No 1, composed in Vienna in 1864, published in December 1868. The song’s autograph is in the Library of Congress, Washington.
B minor (original key),  Mässig
Dunkel, wie dunkel in Wald und in Feld! Dark, how dark in forest and field!
Abend schon ist es, nun schweiget die Welt. Evening already, now the world is silent.
Nirgend noch Licht und nirgend noch Rauch, Nowhere a light and nowhere smoke,
Ja, und die Lerche sie schweiget nun auch. and even the lark is silent now too.
Kommt aus dem Dorfe der Bursche heraus, Out of the village there comes a lad,
Gibt das Geleit der Geliebten nach Haus, escorting his sweetheart home,
Führt sie am Weidengebüsche vorbei, He leads her past the willow-copse,
Redet so viel und so mancherlei: talking so much and of so many things:
„Leidest du Schmach und betrübest du dich, ‘If you suffer sorrow and suffer shame,
Leidest du Schmach von andern um mich, shame for what others think of me,
Werde die Liebe getrennt so geschwind, Then let our love be severed as swiftly,
Schnell wie wir früher vereiniget sind. as swiftly as once we two were plighted.
Scheide mit Regen und scheide mit Wind, Let us depart in rain and depart in wind,
Schnell wie wir früher vereiniget sind.“ as swiftly as once we two were plighted.’
Spricht das Mägdelein, Mägdelein spricht: The girl speaks, the girl says:
„Unsere Liebe sie trennet sich nicht! ‘Our love cannot be severed!
Fest ist der Stahl und das Eisen gar sehr, Steel is strong, and so is iron,
Unsere Liebe ist fester noch mehr. our love is even stronger still.
Eisen und Stahl, man schmiedet sie um, Iron and steel can both be reforged,
Unsere Liebe, wer wandelt sie um? but our love, who shall change it?
Eisen und Stahl, sie können zergehn, Iron and steel can be melted down,
Unsere Liebe muß ewig bestehn!“ our love must endure for ever!’
AUGUST HEINRICH HOFFMANN VON FALLERSLEBEN (1798–1874) translated from traditional Wendish
The locale is Upper Lusatia (Lausitz), a Slavic region—now partly German, partly Polish—inhabited by the Sorbs
(or Wends) where a population of about 60,000 with a dying language still struggles for autonomy to this day.
The scenario is almost cinematic in its pacing. We begin with a distant shot of a bleak landscape at twilight (bars 1–21),
as barren as the lives of those peasants who inhabit it, a place of fear and superstition where even the birds are silent.
From bar 25 we see two figures: those of a young man and woman walking together. At bar 34 they pass a meadow with
bushes, scene of the whirlwind birth and clandestine continuation of their passionate relationship. They are so deep in
conversation that they walk right past this place of former erotic trysts. At bar 45, the fifth verse in this poem of two-line
strophes, the young man launches into a diatribe: he is concerned that his girl is being taunted by others as a result of
their relationship. Money is clearly an issue, but perhaps they have also transgressed ethnic and religious boundaries in
a part of the world notorious for sectarian divisions. He wants to do the right thing by her, he says bitterly: their parting
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 would be as quick and tempestuous as their first coming-together. In the piano interlude that follows this outburst (bars
68–78), triplets clatter in the right hand as the left conducts a dialogue between its bass and alto registers—booming
octaves for the man’s protestations, sixths higher up in the stave for the girl’s soothing replies in a higher tessitura. This
argument, conducted in pianistic terms, dies down in such a way that we can almost see the young man breaking down

in tears as he falls to his knees and is cradled in the girl’s comforting arms.
At bar 79 the tempo changes to ‘Ziemlich langsam’; the time signature is now a gently rocking  (a berceuse reminding
us that every man in trouble needs a mother), and B minor cedes to a visionary B major. The girl sings, initially softly,
then strongly and determined; any man from the wrong side of the tracks (including the composer himself) might dream
of receiving such fervent assurances of loyalty. She is calmly determined to love him despite his perceived unworthiness;
she will stay with him through thick and thin. Much of this affirmation of devotion is sung in the velvety regions of the
mezzo-soprano voice, to which Brahms was always drawn. To make her point, she insists that whatever blows fate may
have in store for them, the couple are welded together for life, unlike the ordinary iron and steel reshaped or melted
down in a village smithy. An evocation of a hammer striking metal is distantly audible in the off-beat octave F sharps
from bar 98, but here it is indicative of the girl’s willpower and her determination to forge a new future. The richness
of harmony and texture, the grandness of utterance (here aided by an exciting accelerando as she works herself up to
a pitch of bright-eyed determination), and the pervasive twos-against-threes mark this out as textbook Brahms. The
development of the story with its straightforward quasi-operatic narration is unusually easy to grasp, and the only
question mark concerns the final outcome: the song ends with four bars of a postlude with ritardando and diminuendo—
a major-key ending certainly, but hardly triumphant. Having allowed us to glimpse the girl’s passion and determination,
the composer’s pessimism seems to get the upper hand, and the result is an ending in a kind of major-key mournfulness.
She may be determined to fight the fight, but how long will this last? Brahms seems to indicate that in the long run the
boy will prove not to be worth all her efforts, and that this love affair will inevitably fade (just like the song) into history:
an incident of the kind of romantic failure in which he felt himself forever destined to be involved.
Brahms ascribed this poem to the Bohemian poet Josef Wenzig (1807–1876), which accounts for the fact that it
continues to appear with this misattribution in the Edition Peters score, and thence in printed concert programmes
around the world. But ‘Dunkel, wie dunkel’ had first appeared in Hoffmann von Fallersleben’s Gedichte (1837). There
it is the third of five Wendische Lieder aus der Oberlausitz (the original and more literal translator from the Wendish
or Sorbian language having been one Leopold Haupt), and it is Hoffmann von Fallersleben, alongside Brahms of course,
who should get the credit in concert programmes.
5 Die Mainacht May night
E flat major (original key),  Sehr langsam und ausdrucksvoll
Op 43 No 2, composed in Karlsruhe in April 1866, published in December 1868. The song’s autograph is in private hands in Basel.

Wann der silberne Mond durch die Gesträuche blinkt, When the silvery moon gleams through the bushes,
Und sein schlummerndes Licht über den Rasen streut, and sheds its slumbering light on the grass,
Und die Nachtigall flötet, and the nightingale is fluting,
Wandl’ ich traurig von Busch zu Busch. I wander sadly from bush to bush.

11
 Überhüllet vom Laub, girret ein Taubenpaar Covered by leaves, a pair of doves
Sein Entzücken mir vor; aber ich wende mich, coo to me their ecstasy; but I turn away,
Suche dunklere Schatten, seek darker shadows,
Und die einsame Träne rinnt. and the lonely tear flows down.
Wann, o lächelndes Bild, welches wie Morgenrot When, O smiling vision that shines through my soul
Durch die Seele mir strahlt, find’ ich auf Erden dich? like the red of dawn, shall I find you here on earth?
Und die einsame Träne And the lonely tear
Bebt mir heißer die Wang herab. quivers more ardently down my cheek.
LUDWIG HÖLTY (1748 –1776) edited by JOHANN HEINRICH VOSS (1751–1826)
This famous song finds the thirty-two-year-old composer at the expressive height of his powers and at the midway
point of his career. The choice of poetry is from the eighteenth century (the poem was also set by Schubert and Fanny
Mendelssohn); having adopted Vienna as his base, Brahms is already speaking up for classicism and conservative
choices in the midst of the Wagnerian maelstrom. A preference for the mezzo voice in terms of selecting songs’ tonalities,
particularly songs in this mood, is also already evident. Die Mainacht unashamedly explores loneliness, demonstrating
Brahms’s increasing tendency to use lieder as a kind of diary, a safety valve of the emotions; in the middle of writing a
great deal of ‘absolute’ music, it is in the intimate confessional of his songs that he increasingly allows his selection of
texts to be influenced by subjective preoccupations.
The opening melody, beautifully tranquil and just right for a moonlit stroll, is supported by an unobtrusive ambulatory
accompaniment, quavers in the right hand offset by softly glowing minim chords in the left. The gentle beauties of nature
reflected in the silvery light are enough to merit the major key, more gently resigned than ecstatic. In literature the fluting
of the nightingale (‘Und die Nachtigall flötet’) famously betokens doomed or unreciprocated love, and it is after this phrase
that the tonic-minor key establishes itself in an interlude. For the poem’s second strophe there is a brief change of key
signature where G flat, the third of the E flat minor triad, pivots enharmonically onto F sharp, the fifth of the new key
of B major. The unconcerned cooing of a pair of doves is skilfully suggested in the accompaniment: a combination of
crotchets in the right hand phrased in yearning intervals with quavers, mezzo-staccato, in the left hand—music that
is delightful but repetitive; the workings of nature. The sound of this conjugal happiness, denied to him, but ubiquitous
in the natural world, is too much for the singer to bear. Sharps yield to three flats in the key signature, and passionate
chords and rising left-hand arpeggios depict a surge of emotion; he turns away to confront the darker shadows of his
own past. Just as this turbulence is briefly mastered (the cadence on ‘dunklere Schatten’ includes the most atmospheric
setting of the word ‘Schatten’), the first of the two celebrated five-bar phrases in this song takes wing—‘Und die einsame
Träne rinnt’. In giving ‘Und’ the value of a dotted minim, Brahms breaks the rules of prosody, but he superbly suggests
tearing up—weeping that starts from deep inside the body. A brilliantly engineered harmonic build-up finds its release
in a single tear: a tear as lonely as the protagonist himself. The singing of this phrase in one breath has always been
taken as a test of a lieder singer’s breath control.

12
 The third verse is a shortened repeat of the first; this time the accompaniment is in triplets to illustrate better the
sweetness of the idealized picture of the beloved—the woman of his dreams. The phrase of a single rising tear is
repeated, this time accompanied by turbulent triplets rather than quavers. The descending vocal arpeggio on ‘heißer die
Wang herab’ traces the progress of this single and lonely teardrop (as it happens, ‘einsame’ covers both meanings) as it
runs down the cheek, lingers there (an extraordinary six-and-a-half beats are allocated to the single syllable ‘Wang’), and
drops to the ground with the final vocal cadence. The four-bar postlude, returning to the quavers of the opening, is one
of the most soulfully bereft in all the Brahms songs, all the more so because it is in the major key.
6 Von waldbekränzter Höhe From forest-wreathed heights
E flat major (original key G major),  Lebhaft
Op 57 No 1, composed before the autumn of 1871, published in December 1871. The song’s autograph is in the Library of Congress, Washington.

Von waldbekränzter Höhe From forest-wreathed heights

Werf ich den heißen Blick I turn the passionate gaze
Der liebefeuchten Sehe of my love-moistened eyes
Zur Flur, die dich umgrünt, zurück. to the green fields about you.
Ich senk ihn auf die Quelle, I lower my gaze to the stream,
Vermöcht ich, ach, mit ihr ah! if only I could flow
Zu fließen eine Welle, with it, as a wave,
Zurück, o Freund, zu dir, zu dir! back, O friend, to you, to you!
Ich richt’ ihn auf die Züge I lift my gaze to the scudding
Der Wolken über mir, clouds above me,
Ach, flög’ ich ihre Flüge, ah! if only I could follow their flight
Zurück, o Freund, zu dir, zu dir! back, O friend, to you, to you!
Wie wollt ich dich umstricken, How I would ensnare you,
Mein Heil und meine Pein, my anguish and salvation,
Mit Lippen und mit Blicken, with my lips and my glances,
Mit Busen, Herz und Seele dein! with my bosom, heart and soul all yours!
GEORG FRIEDRICH DAUMER (1800–1875)
For those who think of Brahms lieder as tending to be slow, introspective and somewhat tortured, this song, written
in almost a single surge of sound and feeling, is a bracing corrective. The erotic poetry of Daumer (Frauenbilder und
Huldigungen), now more or less forgotten but once considered controversially risqué, inspired the composer, not yet
forty after all, to create a song to sweep the listener off his feet. The model for this Siren is clearly not a Clara Schumann
figure, but someone to match Goethe’s oriental Suleika. We know that Brahms revered Schubert’s first Suleika song
(D720) perhaps above all others and, as in Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan, Daumer’s heroine is achingly separated
from her lover by geographical distance. Where exactly these ‘forest-wreathed heights’ are we never discover, but an
exotic locale is implied by the whole mise-en-scène, perhaps even somewhere otherworldly if we imagine that the
bristling semiquavers of Schubert’s Auflösung—a Mayrhofer masterpiece—might also have been an inspiration.
Even more important than Schubert in up-to-date terms was Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde. Brahms had heard the
13
 opera in Vienna in 1862 and had studied the sketches at the home of Mathilde Wesendonck in the late 1860s; his
reactions to this music veered between shattered admiration and strong disapproval. In this song, nothing comes
anywhere near the harmonic world of the Liebestod, but the idea of Isolde is to be heard in the seamlessness of music
written for an enraptured female singer, a soprano afire with the transports of love (Brahms’s choice of key shows that
he had a soprano ideally in mind, not his usually favoured mezzo). In any case, Brahms temporarily felt the need to
move beyond the niceties of Frauenlieder and into the realms of a new kind of expression that had nothing to do with
domesticity and German good manners.
The challenging accompaniment depends on the little finger of the right hand pricking out melody notes, while the
thumb and first finger fleetingly oscillate between adjacent semitones. In this way the whirring of trill-like alternations
is incorporated into piano figurations that play both foreground and background roles—the kind of ingenious writing
for the instrument that never would have occurred to Wagner in his few piano-accompanied lieder. Water music for the
second verse of the poem is marked ‘Ruhiger’; semiquavers cede to triplets, but these triplets finally morph into ‘Sehr
lebhaft’ semiquavers that propel this impassioned paean to its impetuous conclusion. The effect of this final verse comes
as near to achieving vertiginous lift-off as this composer manages in any of his songs. The singer dreams of ‘enmeshment’
with her lover—the kind of reckless do-or-die commitment that has the listener involuntarily thinking of Isolde. This
music is anything but Wagnerian, but it has nevertheless been profoundly influenced by that master’s daring, whether
or not Brahms would have liked to admit it.
7 Unbewegte laue Luft Motionless mild air

Op 57 No 8, composed before the autumn of 1871, published in December 1871. The song’s autograph is in the Library of Congress, Washington.
C major (original key E major),  Langsam
Unbewegte laue Luft, Motionless mild air,
Tiefe Ruhe der Natur; nature deep at rest;
Durch die stille Gartennacht through the still garden night
Plätschert die Fontäne nur; only the fountain plashes;
Aber im Gemüte schwillt but my soul swells
Heißere Begierde mir; with a more ardent desire;
Aber in der Ader quillt life surges in my veins
Leben und verlangt nach Leben. and yearns for life.
Sollten nicht auch deine Brust Should not your breast too
Sehnlichere Wünsche heben? heave with more passionate longing?
Sollte meiner Seele Ruf Should not the cry of my soul
Nicht die deine tief durchbeben? quiver deeply through your own?
Leise mit dem Ätherfuß Softly on ethereal feet
Säume nicht, daher zu schweben! glide to me, do not delay!
Komm, o komm, damit wir uns Come, ah! come, that we might
Himmlische Genüge geben! give each other heavenly satisfaction!
GEORG FRIEDRICH DAUMER (1800–1875)

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 This song, also somewhat Wagnerian (Tristan und Isolde) in its sensuality, if not its harmonic language or length, is
frequently heard on the recital platform. The opening word ‘Unbewegte’ (‘Motionless’) has led many performers to
attempt an almost motionless tempo: this ‘Langsam’ passage, when taken at a funereal pace brings the flow of the
music to an unstylistic standstill. Despite being split into two parts by the composer, the phrase ‘Tiefe Ruhe der Natur’
must be heard, and understood, as a single line of poetry; if further elongated, the four slow beats on the last ‘der’ (bars
11–12, an eccentric setting in any tempo), render the phrase incomprehensible. Performers are then forced to adopt
an unmarked faster tempo (the correct tempo for the whole, in fact) at bar 13 for the sheer reason of breath. This is
worth examining because the challenge of this remarkable song in three sections is that it has to coalesce into a single
increasingly passionate utterance. Making passages with different speeds ‘hang together’ convincingly is one of the subtle
challenges faced by conductors of Wagner’s operas.
A woman finds herself, as if in a dream, in a warm place at night; only the sound of plashing fountains breaks the deep
silence, in a Daumer equivalent of Baudelaire’s ‘Luxe, calme et volupté’ from L’invitation au voyage; she then feels
an overpowering need for the physical expression of love, and calls for her lover, casting her appeal to the heavens.
The awakening—the process of being ‘turned on’ in quickening stages—is unashamedly described and was a source
of some embarrassment to the composer’s admirers. The introductory twelve bars discussed above are remarkable
for their erotic lassitude, the depth of the basses, the see-saw and almost impressionistic suspensions—some of
the most extraordinary music in all the composer’s lieder. This leads into a triplet-accompanied passage reminiscent
of a neglected Brahms song written at the same time—the Schack Serenade, Op 58 No 8—where the evocation is
undoubtedly Spanish and suggests the gardens of the Alhambra. This in turn leads to an exciting ‘Lebhaft’ section: a
setting of words considered by the composer’s friends (for instance the high-minded Elisabeth von Herzogenberg) to
have been the most controversial that he had ever set in terms of sexual openness. The woman’s passionate invitation
to her lover is pretty unambiguous: she opens herself to his coming, but there is nothing coy or salacious about it. The
ongoing momentum of this shimmering, difficult-to-sing music is Wagnerian in effect rather than in substance. We are
borne aloft by relentlessly rustling sextuplets in the piano, and the singer comes across as a sibyl without a trace of the sly
lubricity we encounter, for example, ‘in the shadow of my tresses’ (In dem Schatten meiner Locken) in Wolf’s Spanisches
Liederbuch. Unbewegte laue Luft is a passionate, frankly sexual outpouring, brilliantly if somewhat awkwardly staged in
song terms, and hardly personal—a larger-than-life utterance; a slimmed-down Brahmsian Isolde.
8 Sommerabend Summer evening
Op 84 No 1, composed probably in Pressbaum bei Wien in the autumn of 1881, published in July 1882. The song’s autograph is in the Library of
Congress, Washington. E minor (original key D minor),  Andante con moto
Geh’ schlafen, Tochter, schlafen! Go to bed, daughter, sleep!
Schon fällt der Tau aufs Gras, The dew is falling on the grass,
Und wen die Tropfen trafen, and those that dewdrops touch
Weint bald die Augen naß! will soon weep their eyes wet!

15
 Laß weinen, Mutter, weinen! Enough of crying, mother, of crying!
Das Mondlicht leuchtet hell, The moon is shining bright,
Und wem die Strahlen scheinen, and those the moonlight shines on,
Dem trocknen Tränen schnell! their tears will quickly dry!
Geh’ schlafen, Tochter, schlafen! Go to bed, daughter, sleep!
Schon ruft der Kauz im Wald, The screech-owl is calling in the wood,
Und wen die Töne trafen, and those that hear the sound
Muß mit ihm klagen bald! must wail with it ere long!
Laß klagen, Mutter, klagen! Enough of weeping, mother, of weeping!
Die Nachtigall singt hell, The nightingale sings so clearly,
Und wem die Lieder schlagen, and those its songs touch
Dem schwindet Trauer schnell! will soon forget their sorrow!
HANS SCHMIDT (1854 –1923)
The little-known poet Hans Schmidt—a Latvian who moved to Vienna to study music—became something of a friend
and protégé of Brahms in the 1870s. He was a composer and a pianist, perhaps one of the very first to have made his
living as an accompanist, and the regular performance partner of the contralto Amalie Joachim and the famous lieder-
singing tenor Raimund von zur-Mühlen. When Schmidt sent a copy of his crudely printed Gedichte und Übersetzungen
to Brahms in 1881, the response was immediate and enthusiastic, despite the fact that Schmidt was an amateur poet
with no established reputation. This seems not to have mattered to Brahms who immediately fell for three poems sung
by mothers and daughters, set to music as part of his Op 84. Was it a coincidence that the composer had alighted on
poems on one of his favourite themes? It appears more than likely that Schmidt was already aware of this aspect of his
composer’s enthusiasm and intentionally provided these dialogues as a hook to land a Brahmsian catch. After all it was
an honour for anyone to be set to music by this master, and the immortality of Schmidt has indeed been assured by the
fact that he provided the text of the famous Sapphische Ode, Op 94 No 4.
The scenario of Sommerabend is a slightly lighter-hearted and far more charming version of Liebestreu (track 1 ). The
mother has no specific warnings regarding the dangers of love, but she is negative, world-weary and minor-keyed. She
hears the warning hoot of the owl, and all her daughter seems to care about is the song of the nightingale. Alarmed at
the liveliness of her unbiddable offspring, she begs her daughter to go to sleep. The accompaniment here might betoken
the rocking of a cradle: chords tied across the bar lines move back and forth pendulously on the stave, gently alternating
between the hands. The trouble with this theory is that the daughter’s answers in the major key and a faster tempo,
she with a spring in her step, are far too sophisticated for anyone still in need of a cradle. Her piano-writing is also more
adventurous than her mother’s, as demonstrated by the roving hands of the accompanist; we can confidently predict
for her a lively future. The fact that the song seems related to the style of the Zigeunerlieder can probably be ascribed to
Brahms’s awareness of Hans Schmidt’s Baltic background, hardly Hungarian, but nevertheless folk-like and exotic, just
as the composer liked a great deal of his poetry to be.

16
 9 Der Kranz The wreath

Op 84 No 2, composed probably in Pressbaum bei Wien in the autumn of 1881, published in July 1882. The song’s autograph is in the Library of
Congress, Washington. E minor (original key G minor),  Allegro grazioso
Mutter, hilf mir armen Tochter, Mother, help your poor daughter,
Sieh’ nur, was ein Knabe tat: just see what a boy has done;
Einen Kranz von Rosen flocht er, he wove a wreath of roses
Den er mich zu tragen bat! and asked me to wear it!
Ei, sei deshalb unerschrocken, Hah! Don’t let that scare you,
Helfen läßt sich dir gewiß! of course I can help you!
Nimm den Kranz nur aus den Locken, Unfasten the wreath from your tresses,
Und den Knaben, den vergiß! and forget the boy!
Dornen hat der Kranz, o Mutter, The wreath has thorns, O mother,
Und die halten fest das Haar! and they’ve caught on my hair!
Worte sprach der Knabe, Mutter, And what the boy said, mother,
An die denk’ ich immerdar! I think of all the time!
HANS SCHMIDT (1854 –1923)
As simple as it might look on paper, this is one of the trickiest of the Brahms songs to play—devilishly difficult in fact,
as well as devilishly clever. The idea of entanglement—a wreath caught in a girl’s hair—is connected to the idea of
weaving, and that in turn suggests counterpoint, one layer of notes woven into another. The accompaniment is thus a
two-part invention for agile, intertwined digits, as ingenious as Bach under the fingers, and with something of the sinister
atmosphere of Mahler’s mother-and-child song, Das irdische Leben. Brahms’s work is another of Schmidt’s mother-
daughter dialogues, this time beginning with the daughter complaining in the minor key about her wreath of roses,
thorns and all, specially woven for her by a young man who has been wooing her. The mother has the central panel of
the song. Her vocal tessitura is lower in order to distinguish her words from those of the younger woman; beautifully
crafted pianistic figurations with a hint of the major key underpin her rather brusque maternal reassurance. ‘Unfasten
the wreath from your tresses, and forget the boy’, the older woman says confidently, but that may be easier said than
done. The girl’s music returns in the minor and bristles once again with uncomfortable quasi-contrapuntal complexity.
She tells her mother that it is impossible to remove the wreath on account of the thorns. And then the music is suddenly
marked ‘animato’, and the key signature changes from minor to major. The text is enigmatic: the girl speaks of ‘words’
spoken to her by the boy, as if they have entered her bloodstream and become part of her. She seems to be mesmerized
by something he has said, like that magical stream of Faust’s words (‘seiner Rede Zauberfluss’) that bewitch and
seduce poor Gretchen. But Schmidt’s words also could have been something far cruder, like ‘I’m going to do something
to you that will make you mine for ever’, weaving and splicing here bearing similar results. It is not clear from the music
whether she is enthralled or horrified—probably rather more of the former. In any event, and whether she is pregnant
or not, the girl has become awakened: she is no longer a maiden, and that in itself is a kind of triumph, or so the
postlude implies. The ongoing enmeshment of left hand with right occasions a race up the stave to a forte conclusion,
defiant bravado perhaps.

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 bl In den Beeren Among the berries
Op 84 No 3, composed probably in Pressbaum bei Wien in the autumn of 1881, published in July 1882. The song’s autograph is in the Library of
Congress, Washington. B flat major (original key E flat major),  Sehr lebhaft
Singe, Mädchen, hell und klar, Sing, girl, bright and clear,
Sing’ aus voller Kehle, sing full-throatedly,
Daß uns nicht die Spatzenschar that the flock of sparrows
Alle Beeren stehle! doesn’t steal all our berries!
Mutter, mag auch weit der Spatz The sparrows, mother, might well fly far
Flieh’n vor meinem Singen, to escape my singing,
Fürcht’ ich doch, es wird den Schatz but I’m afraid my sweetheart
Um so näher bringen. will be drawn closer by it!
Freilich, für so dreisten Gauch It’s true, we’ll need some way
Braucht es einer Scheuche, of scaring off that bold stripling,
Warte nur, ich komme auch just wait, and I’ll come as well
In die Beerensträuche! into the berry bushes!
Mutter, nein, das hat nicht Not: Mother, no, that’s not needed:
Beeren, schau, sind teuer, berries, you see, are dear,
Doch der Küsse, reif und rot, but kisses, ripe and red,
Gibt es viele heuer! are plentiful this year!
HANS SCHMIDT (1854 –1923)
Elisabeth von Herzogenberg was much taken with these three Schmidt settings of Op 84, referring to them as ‘jolly little
rascals’ and rejoicing in their economy of expression: ‘The marvellous beauties of the quickest movements, as in the
flight of a lovely deer, pass almost unnoticed while the unathletic person, trying to keep pace, wheezes and pants behind.’
This song is undoubtedly one of the sauciest of the Brahms lieder, a feast of punning and innuendo. The mortal enemies
of those who grow berries for a living are the sparrows who peck the fruit to pieces; this pecking accounts for the staccato
chords in the piece. But the girl who is charged with singing in order to frighten the birds away has a lover whom she
entertains in the berry fields without the mother’s knowledge; her subterfuge is written into the writhing quavers of the
sub rosa (or rather sub-berry) accompaniment, left and right hand—like boy and girl—on top of each other and slyly
doubling each other’s activities in the lower regions of the stave. Of course the lover (‘Schatz’) kisses or pecks quite
differently from the sparrow (‘Spatz’—the poet intends for the words to sound very similar). When the girl is busy
canoodling in the bushes with her secret visitor, she is clearly too busy kissing to discharge her vocal duties (but the
irony is that in telling the story, she is singing all the while). Disturbed by her daughter’s silence, the mother commands
her to resume her role as a bel canto scarecrow; the girl makes the excuse that she had better not do so, as this might
encourage her boyfriend to pay a visit. ‘I’m coming right down to help’, the mother then replies; ‘no, you don’t need
to do that’, says the girl who, as if caught in the act, comes clean regarding her priority (kissing, of course), although
it is not clear whether her closing phrases, triumphant and unashamed, are addressed to a proprietary parent or to the
audience—almost certainly the latter. The merriness of the music and the jovial accompaniment, chords prancing

18
 between the hands, suggest that the consequences may not be all that dire. The mother’s music in this performance is
in B flat major, the pivotal B flat tonic turning into A sharp, which is the leading note of the girl’s retaliatory music in B
major. Herzogenberg tells Brahms that this sudden enharmonic change is ‘horrible for the reader’, while understanding
the point of it—a wonderful way of musically demonstrating the different priorities (and pecking orders) of the two
women: the mother doing anything to protect her property, the girl willing to sacrifice all her berries for love. ‘Oh, the
freedom and the mastery!’, Herzogenberg writes admiringly to Brahms almost despite herself, and we have to agree.
Zwei Gesänge für eine Altstimme, Viola und Klavier Op 91
These two songs are, in the words of Natasha Loges, ‘the musical embodiment of the composer’s relationship to Amalie
and Joseph Joachim’. Singer and violinist (as well as violist), wife and husband, they were both Catholics, and Geistliches
Wiegenlied was a wedding present to the couple from the Protestant Brahms in 1863. A little later the ever-conscientious
composer asked for the manuscript back so he could revise it; the couple then asked for the music to be returned to
them in 1864 to perform at the baptism of their first son Johannes, named after the composer and also his godchild.
The Joachim marriage produced six children, but it was a stormy one, and it is said the second of these songs (the first
in the order of the set) was composed twenty years later as a means of encouraging the couple towards a reconciliation
(the Joachims divorced anyway, the jealous violinist accusing his wife of adultery with, among others, her accompanist
Hans Schmidt, the poet of tracks 8 to bl on this recording).
bm Gestillte Sehnsucht Assuaged longing
Op 91 No 1, probably composed in the summer of 1884 in Mürzzuschlag, published in December 1884. The song’s autograph is lost.
D major (original key),  Adagio espressivo
In goldnen Abendschein getauchet, Bathed in golden evening light,
Wie feierlich die Wälder stehn! how solemnly the forests stand!
In leise Stimmen der Vöglein hauchet The evening winds mingle softly
Des Abendwindes leises Wehn. with the soft voices of the birds.
Was lispeln die Winde, die Vögelein? What do the winds, the birds whisper?
Sie lispeln die Welt in Schlummer ein. They whisper the world to sleep.
Ihr Wünsche, die ihr stets euch reget But you, my desires, ever stirring
Im Herzen sonder Rast und Ruh! in my heart without respite!
Du Sehnen, das die Brust beweget, You, my longing, that agitates my breast:
Wann ruhest du, wann schlummerst du? when will you rest, when will you sleep?
Beim Lispeln der Winde, der Vögelein, The winds and the birds whisper,
Ihr sehnenden Wünsche, wann schlaft ihr ein? but when will you, yearning desires, slumber?

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 Ach, wenn nicht mehr in goldne Fernen Ah! when my spirit no longer hastens
Mein Geist auf Traumgefieder eilt, on wings of dreams into golden distances,
Nicht mehr an ewig fernen Sternen when my eyes no longer dwell yearningly
Mit sehnendem Blick mein Auge weilt; on eternally remote stars;
Dann lispeln die Winde, die Vögelein then shall the winds, the birds whisper
Mit meinem Sehnen mein Leben ein. my life—and my longing—to sleep.
FRIEDRICH RÜCKERT (1788 –1866)
In the 1843 edition of his works, Rückert places this among his Jugendlieder, poems written in his late teens, although
the words that inspired Brahms to a masterful composition have the ring of enormous maturity and experience about
them; paradoxically, it is the copiousness of the poetry that betrays the writer’s youth—the older Rückert is much leaner
in expression. Nevertheless it is a well-chosen lyric for what Brahms wanted to do, which was to create a general picture
rather than tell a story making different illustrative points. ‘Overarching’ would be a word to describe the mood: a
distillation of an entire lifetime lived in gentle autumnal colours, and a life equally assured of a golden sunset. The
genius of this music is in the combination of mezzo voice (Amalie Joachim officially designated herself a contralto)
with viola—something rich and opulent, a texture and mood of dark velvet plush that could not be more typical of the
master. For once the piano takes a back seat, content to provide a rippling harmonic background, gently facilitating this
love-in between vibrating strings and vocal chords, conjuring a great piece of chamber music rather than a lied per se.
Of course, Brahms is too great a setter of words to ignore the challenge of depicting gentle winds and the whispering of
birds, but here it is the viola, rather than the usually illustrative piano, whose sextuplets provide a responsive quickening
of activity. There is a middle section in D minor, and in these minor reflections the piano temporarily abandons rolling
sextuplets in favour of some anguished demi-semiquavers, while the viola is equally briefly virtuosic in its passionate
shudderings. This ebb and flow, the soul’s search for respite and peace, is short-lived and quickly leads to a satisfying
return to the security of D major at the beginning of the third verse. True to the song’s title, longing is assuaged; the
composer’s favourite kind of voice combines with the poignant viola descant in seamless fashion; Brahms permits
himself simply to be Brahms and weaves his mellow, fin-de-siècle magic. We find ourselves held in a comforting cat’s
cradle of sound and time: this music encapsulates an age of happiness and safety typified by domestic music-making
in Vienna in the twilight of the century—a way of life that occasioned infinite nostalgia in later years, but at the time
was taken completely for granted by the better-off middle class. It seems entirely unsurprising that Brahms might have
believed that the warring Joachims, in performing this music together, would have been reminded of the comfortable
stability they would lose as artists, and as people, should they part company. A darker side, and a pathway to the
composer’s later Vier ernste Gesänge, is also discernible: this poem, by the same author as Mahler’s Ich bin der Welt
abhanden gekommen, looks forward to a release from the cares of the world, doubtless another reason the composer,
long preoccupied with his own mortality, was drawn to it.

20
 bn Geistliches Wiegenlied A sacred cradle-song

Op 91 No 2, probably composed between 1863 and 1864 in Vienna, published in December 1884. The song’s autograph is in a private collection
in New York. F major (original key),  Andante con moto
Die ihr schwebet You who hover
Um diese Palmen around these palms
In Nacht und Wind, in night and wind,
Ihr heil’gen Engel, you holy angels,
Stillet die Wipfel! silence the tree-tops!
Es schlummert mein Kind. My child is sleeping.
Ihr Palmen von Bethlehem You palms of Bethlehem
Im Windesbrausen, in the raging wind,
Wie mögt ihr heute why do you bluster
So zornig sausen! so angrily today!
O rauscht nicht also! O roar not so!
Schweiget, neiget Be still, lean
Euch leis’ und lind; calmly and gently over us;
Stillet die Wipfel! silence the tree-tops!
Es schlummert mein Kind. My child is sleeping.
Der Himmelsknabe The heavenly babe
Duldet Beschwerde, suffers distress,
Ach, wie so müd’ er ward oh, how weary he has grown
Vom Leid der Erde. with the sorrows of this world.
Ach, nun im Schlaf ihm Ah, now that in sleep
Leise gesänftigt his pains
Die Qual zerrinnt, are gently eased,
Stillet die Wipfel! silence the treetops!
Es schlummert mein Kind. My child is sleeping.
Grimmige Kälte Fierce cold
Sauset hernieder, blows down on us,
Womit nur deck’ ich with what shall I cover
Des Kindleins Glieder! my little child’s limbs?
O all ihr Engel, O all you angels,
Die ihr geflügelt who wing your way
Wandelt im Wind, on the winds,
Stillet die Wipfel! silence the tree-tops!
Es schlummert mein Kind. My child is sleeping.
EMANUEL GEIBEL (1815 –1884) translated from Spanish of Lope de Vega (1562–1635)

21
 The old Catholic melody that opens this piece with an unaccompanied
viola solo for two bars, then discreetly joined by piano, was taken from K S
Meister’s Das katholische deutsche Kirchenlied. The original words of this
carol are printed in the score, but never sung. They begin: ‘Joseph, my
good Joseph / Help me to rock my darling child.’ As such they made an
ideal implicit dedication to Brahms’s lifelong friend Joseph Joachim on
the occasion of his marriage. As it happens the name of his bride, Amalie
Schneeweiss (‘snow-white’), also conjures up images of child-like purity
and innocence, just right for the heavenly babe who is cradled at the
centre of this song. This is Hausmusik at its best, a very exalted category of
Hausmusik certainly, but a composition that was made to be part of family
celebrations, christenings and Yuletide gatherings, and gifted accordingly.
It also seems somewhat domestic that a great violinist in the warmth of the
family circle would choose to play the homely viola rather than that prima
donna of instruments, the violin. Throughout the piece, fragments of this
old beloved melody surface in the viola’s descant to the setting of Die ihr
schwebet, Geibel’s translation of Lope de Vega’s poem beginning ‘Pues
andáis en las palmas, / Ángeles santos, / Que se duerme mi niño, /
Tened los ramos’. This translation was published in the poet’s Spanisches
4 6
Liederbuch and set to music by Hugo Wolf twenty-five years later in an
entirely different way. Wolf in 4 (as opposed to Brahms’s 8) is preter-
naturally alive to every nuance in the poem, and makes much of the
storm music and the contrasts of mood. Brahms also acknowledges the storm with a certain amount of agitato vocal
6
vehemence but, on account of the viola and its range, was unable to change registers as dramatically as the younger
composer; as a result, everything is contained within the boundaries of a gentle rocking 8 (barring a sixteen-bar
3
minor middle section where the time signature changes to 4 without us noticing). The mood of a lullaby is maintained
throughout, even if that lullaby is somewhat disturbed by the illusion of bad weather occasioned by the excited flapping
of a host of angels’ wings. The song ends as it began, with a gently accompanied viola solo.

22
 bo Dort in den Weiden steht ein Haus There among the willows stands a house
Op 97 No 4, composed before May 1885, published in March 1886. The song’s autograph is in the Stiftelsen Musikkulturens Främjande,
Stockholm. B flat major (original key D major),  Lebhaft und anmutig
Dort in den Weiden steht ein Haus, There among the willows stands a house,
Da schaut die Magd zum Fenster ’naus! a young girl looks out of the window.
Sie schaut stromauf, sie schaut stromab: She looks upstream, she looks downstream:
Ist noch nicht da mein Herzensknab’? Has my beloved boy not come?
Der schönste Bursch am ganzen Rhein, The handsomest boy along the whole Rhine,
Den nenn’ ich mein! it’s him I call my own!
Des Morgens fährt er auf dem Fluß, Each morning he sails on the river,
Und singt herüber seinen Gruß. and sings his greeting across it.
Des Abends, wenn’s Glühwürmchen fliegt, Each evening when the glow-worm flies,
Sein Nachen an das Ufer wiegt, his small boat moves gently ashore.
Da kann ich mit dem Burschen mein Then I and my boy
Beisammen sein! can be together!
Die Nachtigall im Fliederstrauch, What the nightingale sings in the lilac bush,
Was sie da singt, versteh’ ich auch; I can understand;
Sie saget: übers Jahr ist Fest, it says: A year hence you will celebrate;
Hab’ ich, mein Lieber, auch ein Nest, I too have a nest, my dear,
Wo ich dann mit dem Burschen mein where I and my boy
Die Froh’st’ am Rhein! are the happiest pair on the Rhine!
TRADITIONAL
The text is supposedly a folk song from the Lower Rhine. Brahms found it in the volume of folk-song melodies published
by Zuccalmaglio in 1840 where it had its own supposedly age-old original melody (although it was actually composed
by Zuccalmaglio himself). He later made an arrangement of that folk song as No 31 of his forty-nine folk-song


arrangements, but for his song-composing purposes he takes the text and provides a much better tune of his own. It
is an irresistible success with its memorable little melody; teasing changes of metre between  and , and a prancing
accompaniment defined by offbeat chords in the left hand add an unmistakable swagger to an already saucy production.
The only thing to dispute is whether this sounds sufficiently like a German folk song, or more like something from the
Spanish or gypsy worlds. At the end of both verses the accompaniment, with its leaps in the bass, implied hand-claps and
a typically southern joie de vivre, makes us imagine that one of the Op 103 Zigeunerlieder (all of them also in ) may
have come adrift from that set. This could easily pass for a study in Romany vivacity were it not for the fact that the girl
tells us that if she were given the chance to live in a love nest with her chosen boyfriend, she would be the happiest girl
on all the Rhine. Gypsy encampments somewhere on the Rhine might have been grudgingly permitted in the nineteenth
century, but it is not perhaps the picture-postcard German scenario that Zuccalmaglio would have had in mind.

23
 Zigeunerlieder Op 103
Composed in Vienna during the winter of 1887–88, the solo version published in April/May 1889. The songs’ autograph (original quartet version) is in
the British Library (Stefan Zweig Collection), London.
Hugo Conrat, a member of a well-to-do Jewish family in Vienna (and later a close friend of Brahms), had made
translations of these Magyar texts with the help of two of his children’s Hungarian nannies; he sent to Brahms a
volume of twenty-five Ungarische Liebeslieder, supposedly original gypsy folk melodies with piano accompaniments
by one Zoltán Nagy, published in Budapest with Conrat’s polished German translations (and, strangely enough, without
the original Hungarian). Brahms, already a veteran of the Hungarian dances for piano and for orchestra, was enchanted;
as the composer of the famous Liebeslieder-Walzer for vocal quartet, he first composed eleven of these poems for SATB
(although some of the songs have solo passages for tenor). These settings owed almost nothing to the original melodies
with accompaniments by Nagy, and the work enjoyed immediate
success. A year later, Brahms made solo versions of eight songs—
selecting Nos 1–7, and ending with No 11—of the multi-voiced
version; these represent the texts of Nos 2, 3, 6–9, 13 and 21 of
the Nagy arrangements. Despite the erotic nature of the songs, they
found unexpected approval from the two critics of the composer
who were most inclined to be prudish: Elisabeth von Herzogenberg
and Clara Schumann. It was Clara who first praised Brahms’s
achievement in having written a cycle where all the songs were in
 (a metre required by the pervasive trochees and spondees of the
text) but which nevertheless succeeded in holding the listener’s
attention throughout. She might have added that, with the exception
of the first, all these songs are printed on two pages and are
composed with an economy and unpretentiousness that belie
the extravagant emotions given musical voice in this vibrant cycle.

FRONTISPIECE OF THE ZIGEUNERLIEDER SCORE

24
 bp He, Zigeuner, greife in die Saiten ein! Hey, gypsy, sound your strings!
Op 103 No 1, originally ‘Hej te cigány, huzd el az én nótámat’.
F minor (original key A minor),  Allegro agitato
He, Zigeuner, greife in die Saiten ein! Hey, gypsy, sound your strings!
Spiel das Lied vom ungetreuen Mägdelein! Play the song of the faithless girl!
Laß die Saiten weinen, klagen, traurig bange, Make the strings weep and moan in sad despair
Bis die heiße Träne netzet diese Wange! till hot tears moisten these cheeks!
The rolling-triplet accompaniment, encompassing thrumming right-hand thirds, fourths and fifths pitted against strong
left-hand downbeats, is awkward to play, but it generates a great deal of excitement. The superb vocal line, nothing like
the original melody set by Nagy, manages to convey rage and hurt pride, as well as a determination that the singer’s
experience with a faithless girl should be immortalized in music—the subject of an eloquent fiddler’s lament made-
to-order. When performed truly ‘agitato’ as the composer commands, this is a superbly tempestuous invocation with
which to begin the set; major-key harmony mixed with the prevailing minor key conveys a bittersweet edge of rejected
love—a masochism familiar to Brahms.
bq Hochgetürmte Rimaflut, wie bist du so trüb Rima, how troubled your towering waters are
Op 103 No 2, originally ‘Mély a Rima, zavaros ha megárad’.
B flat minor (original key D minor),  Allegro molto
Hochgetürmte Rimaflut, wie bist du so trüb; Rima, how troubled your towering waters are;
An dem Ufer klag ich laut nach dir, mein Lieb! I’ll lament for you loudly on its banks, my love!
Wellen fliehen, Wellen strömen, Waters rush by, waves stream past,
Rauschen an dem Strand heran zu mir; roaring towards me on the shore;
An dem Rimaufer laßt mich ewig weinen nach ihr! on the banks of the Rima let me weep for her eternally!
Once again the original bears no relation to Brahms’s greatly superior pastiche. The sheer energy of this music, ‘rattling
and pounding along’, as Elisabeth von Herzogenberg put it, is astounding; Brahms has completely thought himself into
the reckless devil-may-care mindset of the gypsy. This music is a real ‘stomp’—in the jazz world still the definition for
a number in a fast tempo with a heavy beat. As in the first song it is clear that a gypsy does not take unluckiness in love
lying down—desperate sadness has a demonic energy all its own.
br Wisst ihr, wann mein Kindchen Do you know when my little girl
Op 103 No 3, originally ‘Akkor szép a kislány’.
B flat major (original key D major),  Allegretto
Wisst ihr, wann mein Kindchen Do you know when my little girl
Am allerschönsten ist? is at her loveliest?
Wenn ihr süßes Mündchen When her sweet little mouth
Scherzt und lacht und küßt. jokes and laughs and kisses.

25
 Mägdelein, Sweetheart,
Du bist mein, you are mine,
Inniglich tenderly
Küß ich dich, I kiss you,
Dich erschuf der liebe Himmel dear heaven made you
Einzig nur für mich! for me alone!
Wisst ihr, wann mein Liebster Do you know when my beloved
Am besten mir gefällt? pleases me most?
Wenn in seinen Armen When he holds me
Er mich umschlungen hält. in his arms’ embrace.
Schätzelein, Sweetheart,
Du bist mein, you are mine,
Inniglich tenderly
Küß ich dich, I kiss you,
Dich erschuf der liebe Himmel dear heaven made you
Einzig nur für mich! for me alone!
This song is cast in csárdás style where a slow section (‘lassú’) alternates with a fast one (‘friska’). The mysteries of
the roots of the Hungarian language seem less formidable if equated here to ‘lassitude’ and ‘friskiness’. The first section,
accompanied by staccato right-hand quavers, is flirtatious, as if toying with the girl’s affections; the left hand echoes
his melody in imitation, this feedback suggesting her almost docile reciprocation. And then the time has come for out-
and-out declarations of joyful amatory ownership. With an active left hand teeming with semiquavers (‘quasi-dulcimer’
according to Sams), it seems as if a whole gypsy band has joined in the celebrations. After a coquettish little interlude
it’s back to the ‘lassú’ which is in turn followed by another prancing ‘friska’.
bs Lieber Gott, du weißt, wie oft bereut ich hab Dear God, you know how often I’ve regretted
Op 103 No 4, originally ‘Isten tudja hányszor meg nem bántam’.
D major (original key F major),  Vivace grazioso
Lieber Gott, du weißt, wie oft bereut ich hab, Dear God, you know how often I’ve regretted
Daß ich meinem Liebsten einst ein Küßchen gab. that little kiss I once gave my dearest.
Herz gebot, daß ich ihn küssen muß, My heart decreed I had to kiss him,
Denk so lang ich leb an diesen ersten Kuß. as long as I live I’ll think of that first kiss.
Lieber Gott, du weißt, wie oft in stiller Nacht Dear God, you know how often in silent nights
Ich in Lust und Leid an meinen Schatz gedacht. I’ve thought of my love in joy and pain.
Lieb ist süß, wenn bitter auch die Reu, Love is sweet, however bitter the regret,
Armes Herze bleibt ihm ewig, ewig treu. my poor heart will ever be faithful to him.
The two contrasting sections of this song are not marked with different tempi, but in practice this is another song in ‘lassú’
and ‘friska’ form—a perfect way of reflecting a binary choice: ‘should I, or shouldn’t I have?’ The delicate opening has to
display at least an attempt at rueful penance, the emphasis very much on the ‘grazioso’ part of the marking. (The words
of the second verse dwell on similarly ambivalent thoughts of the boyfriend, even if the middle of the night is best given
26
 over to prayers). The urge to kiss unashamedly, however, is too strong to resist, whatever the attendant guilt. It is from
bar 9 that the music becomes truly ‘Vivace’, spread tenths in the left hand jubilantly propelling the music forward. On
this occasion at least, piety is relatively easily defeated in its ongoing battle with sexual attraction.
bt Brauner Bursche führt zum Tanze A swarthy lad leads his lass
Op 103 No 5, originally ‘Barna legény tánczra viszi kökény szemü babáját’.
B major (original key D major),  Allegro giocoso
Brauner Bursche führt zum Tanze A swarthy lad leads his lovely
Sein blauäugig schönes Kind, blue-eyed lass to the dance,
Schlägt die Sporen keck zusammen, boldly clashes his spurs together,
Csardas-Melodie beginnt, a csárdás melody begins,
Küßt und herzt sein süßes Täubchen, he kisses and hugs his sweet little dove,
Dreht sie, führt sie, jauchzt und springt; turns her, leads her, exults and leaps;
Wirft drei blanke Silbergulden throws three shining silver florins
Auf das Cimbal, daß es klingt. that make the cimbalom ring.
In performing a song like this, one should take to heart words from Conrat’s preface to the Nagy arrangements:
‘Hungarian song is mostly performed less strictly in time and with greater rhythmical freedom than German folk
music.’ This powerful and beautiful song is about relish, both disciplined (the ceremonial clashing of spurs) and wildly
unbuttoned (the exulting and leaping). The text feasts on the sight of a swarthy gypsy youth and his blue-eyed sweetheart,
a flagrant display of sexual power offering something to anyone and everyone. As the singer reaches for her chest register,
and the pianist hones a capacity for suggestively swaggering triplets, a little exploratory stretching of the rhythm is needed
to hit the mark. And then there is the gypsy orchestra, commenting on this sight with a rubato that is indefinable, easy to
exaggerate (bearing in mind that Brahms is not a real gypsy), but sometimes requiring the kind of daring that makes one
go out on a limb. There are many different ways of shaping this marvellous music; one spends a lifetime of doing it faster
or slower, bending it this way or that. The arrogance of youth imagines silver coins thrown disdainfully onto the cimbalom
(‘take that!’) with sufficient force to break the strings; older performers are more judicious and in sympathy with the
street musician whose instrument, safely intact, is his only means of making a living.
bu Röslein dreie in der Reihe blühn so rot Three little red roses bloom side by side
Op 103 No 6, originally ‘Három rózsa egy sorjában mind piros’.
E flat major (original key G major),  Vivace grazioso
Röslein dreie in der Reihe blühn so rot, Three little red roses bloom side by side,
Daß der Bursch zum Mädel geht, ist kein Verbot! it’s no crime for a lad to visit his lass!
Lieber Gott, wenn das verboten wär, Dear God, if that were a crime,
Ständ die schöne weite Welt schon längst nicht mehr, this fair wide world would long ago have ceased to exist,
Ledig bleiben Sünde wär! staying single would be a sin!

27
 Schönstes Städtchen in Alföld ist Ketschkemet, The loveliest town in Alföld is Kecskemét,
Dort gibt es gar viele Mädchen schmuck und nett! where many smart and nice girls live!
Freunde, sucht euch dort ein Bräutchen aus, Friends, find yourselves a young bride there,
Freit um ihre Hand und gründet euer Haus, win her hand and set up house,
Freudenbecher leeret aus! drain beakers of joy!
This is little more than a delightful little patter song, although English-speaking singers have a tendency to attempt it at
a breakneck tempo where the text is entirely incomprehensible. Quavers swiftly and deftly alternate between the pianist’s
hands in the earlier, more feminine part of the song, somewhat pointillistic in effect, before the musical texture becomes
more masculine and hearty with broader note values underpinned by left-hand octaves and rippling arpeggios. The idea
of courting leading to populating the planet (and the planet’s obvious demise without that activity) raises the possibility
of it being a sin, or even against the law, to remain unmarried. This idea must have amused Brahms, whose favourite
aphorism was ‘I’m sorry I’ve never married, and have had to remain a bachelor, thank God!’.
cl Kommt dir manchmal in den Sinn Do you sometimes recall?
Op 103 No 7, originally ‘Jut-e néha, jut-e rózsám eszedbe’.
C major (original key E flat major),  Andantino grazioso
Kommt dir manchmal in den Sinn, Do you sometimes recall,
Mein süßes Lieb, my sweetest,
Was du einst mit heil’gem Eide what you once pledged to me
Mir gelobt? with a sacred oath?
Täusch mich nicht, verlaß mich nicht, Do not deceive me, do not leave me,
Du weißt nicht wie lieb ich dich hab, you do not know how much I love you;
Lieb du mich, wie ich dich, love me as I love you,
Dann strömt Gottes Huld auf dich herab! and God’s grace will pour down on you!
This beautiful song brought tears to the eyes of the normally difficult-to-please Elisabeth von Herzogenberg. It is
the single instance in the whole group where Brahms has allowed himself to be influenced by the melody of the tune
presented in the Hungarian edition, and harmonized by Nagy, not only in his adopting the shape of the first phrase, but
also where it matters most—the descending sequences of ‘Täusch mich nicht, verlaß mich nicht’, where the composer
makes changes that sprinkle them with Brahmsian stardust. The gentle reminders of promises and oaths (which we
must here presume to be broken promises) illustrate the powerlessness of the abandoned woman, not only in gypsy
culture or in nineteenth-century terms, but as a perennial trope in music and life to the present day. There is nothing in
the text itself that actually confirms abandonment, but this is clearly music for a woman good and steadfast to the bitter
end, and with that comes a sense of an unequal relationship with the gypsy lad not deserving this kind of devotion. The
words of Conrat regarding the use of rubato in Hungarian music apply very much in this case, but performers have to
beware: too much over-indulgent rubato robs the woman of her dignified stoicism.

28
 cm Rote Abendwolken ziehn Red evening clouds drift
Op 103 No 8, originally ‘Esti hajnal az ég alján meghasad’.
B flat major (original key G flat major),  Allegro
Rote Abendwolken ziehn Red evening clouds drift
Am Firmament, across the sky,
Sehnsuchtsvoll nach dir, mein Lieb, my heart burns longingly
Das Herze brennt; for you, my love;
Himmel strahlt in glühnder Pracht the sky’s ablaze in glowing glory
Und ich träum bei Tag und Nacht and night and day I dream
Nur allein von dem süßen Liebchen mein. solely of my sweet love.
HUGO CONRAT (1845 –1906) translated from traditional Hungarian
This is a grand finale for the open road, a gathering of the clans, and a stirring and exciting one. The eternally travelling
gypsy (one wonders whether Brahms knew anything about Lavengro, the famous Romany of George Borrow) is confident
that ever more impressive and dramatic sights will reveal themselves on every horizon. As always, passion for distant
destinations is combined with love for an indeterminate and constantly changing ‘Liebchen’. For the only time in the
set, Brahms uses a dramatic change of tonality (after eight bars the screw is tightened with a key signature a minor
third higher), as if the singer has triumphantly climbed to a higher vantage point on a mountain in order to view an even
broader and more beautiful vista. After eight bars at this height, the music returns to the home key. From there, Brahms
engineers an exciting coda where inexorably rising sequences lead to an ending of almost thundering grandeur.
cn Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer My sleep grows ever quieter
D minor (original key C sharp minor),  Langsam und leise
Op 105 No 2, composed in Thun in August 1886, published in October 1888. The song’s autograph is lost.

Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer, My sleep grows ever quieter,

Nur wie Schleier liegt mein Kummer only my grief, like a veil,
Zitternd über mir. lies trembling over me.
Oft im Traume hör’ ich dich I often hear you in my dreams
Rufen drauß vor meiner Tür: calling outside my door:
Niemand wacht und öffnet dir, no one keeps watch and lets you in,
Ich erwach’ und weine bitterlich. I awake and weep bitterly.
Ja, ich werde sterben müssen, Yes, I shall have to die,
Eine Andre wirst du küssen, you will kiss another
Wenn ich bleich und kalt. when I am pale and cold.
Eh’ die Maienlüfte wehn, Before May breezes blow,
Eh’ die Drossel singt im Wald: before the thrush sings in the wood:
Willst du mich noch einmal sehn, if you would see me once again,
Komm, o komme bald! come soon, come soon!
HERMANN LINGG (1820 –1905)

29
 This is one of a handful of famous deathbed songs in the repertoire. In Schubert’s Der Tod und das Mädchen and his
equally famous Die junge Nonne, young women face their ends with considerable anguish, although in both cases their
final moments are more peaceful than they had feared. Brahms’s slightly earlier Heine setting, Der Tod, das ist die kühle
Nacht, from 1884, and his later O Tod, wie bitter bist du from the Vier ernste Gesänge treat death as a welcome guest, a
solution to the harrying cares of life. Immer leiser wird mein Schlummer is unique in that instead of attempting to depict
the actual moment of death, the song illustrates the process of dying, a fading away rather than a definitive departure.
The woman is almost certainly suffering from tuberculosis, and she is clearly not expected to live beyond the early spring,
a season fast approaching if the request to ‘come soon’ is to be taken seriously. What seems certain is that there will be
no visit; the scenario—that of an abandoned woman—is a familiar one in Brahms’s songs, and this lieder-singing
Violetta will have no last-minute reconciliation with her Alfredo.
From the beginning, the music hovers—as if floating and feverish—several feet off the ground, unanchored. The
listener, like the suffering patient, is disorientated. (Pfitzner in his Op 2 setting of a decade later achieves something
similarly unworldly.) The tonic chord in root position is fleetingly reached at the end of bar 3, but it has been far more
important that the music has begun out of nowhere on the second inversion of that minor triad. A slow cortège of dotted
crotchets and quavers in sixths might be interpreted as the gliding footfall of death, an eerie presentiment of the stricken
world of Mahler’s Kindertotenlieder. The unusually extended gaps in the vocal line (as between ‘Niemand wacht’ and
‘und öffnet dir’) cannily denote a consumptive’s shortness of breath. Slowly drifting arpeggios in second inversion—
rising from the fifth step of four different and carefully chosen chords—are at the heart of the song’s musical
architecture. The use of this harmonic device was bitterly criticized by Elisabeth von Herzogenberg as ungrammatical,
but in the interests of drama, Brahms breaks such old rules and conventions and is here an unlikely partner in crime
with Richard Strauss, already a famous name. The composer builds an astonishing forte climax, culminating, after
several cleverly engineered key shifts, at ‘o komme bald!’ in the second inversion of the tonic major. It is only much
later, with the singer’s final word in fact, that we reach the root position of the chord. It is as if the desperately ill woman
has summoned every last ounce of strength to make this impassioned plea, before sinking back into the pillows while
murmuring again ‘o komme bald!’. Her almost epic weariness and at the last minute her tragic grandeur make this song
one of the most theatrical that Brahms ever composed. No histrionics are required in performance: the singer has simply
to obey the requirements of the score for the drama of this scenario to come across most powerfully.
co Klage Lament


Op 105 No 3, probably composed in 1888, published in October 1888. The song’s autograph is in the Bibliothek im Rathaus, Vienna.
F major (original key),  Einfach und ausdrucksvoll
Feins Liebchen, trau du nicht, Dearest, do not trust him,
Daß er dein Herz nicht bricht! then he won’t break your heart!
Schön Worte will er geben, He’ll speak fine words,
Es kostet dein jung Leben, they’ll cost you your young life,
Glaubs sicherlich! believe me!

30
 Ich werde nimmer froh, I’ll never be happy again,
Denn mir ging es also: for that is what happened:
Die Blätter vom Baum gefallen the leaves have fallen from the tree
Mit den schönen Worten allen, with all those fine words,
Ist Winterzeit! it’s winter!
Es ist jetzt Winterzeit, Now it’s winter,
Die Vögelein sind weit, the little birds are far distant,
Die mir im Lenz gesungen, they that sang to me in spring,
Mein Herz ist mir gesprungen my heart is broken
Vor Liebesleid. with the sorrow of love.
TRADITIONAL
Here is yet another song from a deserted girl, this time sung to a friend, a sister perhaps, another woman who is sure
to find herself in the same boat should she not heed this warning. Brahms found these words in Zuccalmaglio, but
the melody, one of his most touching, is entirely different from the one to be found in that source. Although this
is not a mother-daughter poem, it is similarly a word of crestfallen advice given from one woman to another. The
accompaniment, as in most of Brahms’s folk-song-like lieder, is disarmingly simple, and the two pages of the printed
score are exactly the same, apart from the words—two strophes on the first side, one on the second. There is not much
to say about this song apart from the fact that only Brahms could have written it, and that its simplicity masks a lifetime’s
mastery, as well as a lifetime’s loneliness.
cp Ständchen Serenade
E flat major (original key G major),  Allegretto grazioso
Op 106 No 1, composed in Thun, probably in the summer of 1888, published in October 1888. The song’s autograph is lost.

Der Mond steht über dem Berge, The moon shines over the mountain,
So recht für verliebte Leut; just right for people in love;
Im Garten rieselt ein Brunnen, a fountain purls in the garden—
Sonst Stille weit und breit. otherwise silence far and wide.
Neben der Mauer im Schatten, By the wall in the shadows,
Da stehn der Studenten drei three students stand
Mit Flöt’ und Geig’ und Zither, with flute and fiddle and zither,
Und singen und spielen dabei. and there they sing and play.
Die Klänge schleichen der Schönsten The sounds steal softly into the dreams
Sacht in den Traum hinein, of the loveliest of girls,
Sie schaut den blonden Geliebten she sees her fair-headed lover
Und lispelt: „Vergiß nicht mein.“ and whispers: ‘Remember me.’
FRANZ THEODOR KUGLER (1808 –1858)

31
 It is curious to imagine Brahms writing a bagatelle like this at the
same time that Wolf was working on his Mörike, Eichendorff and Goethe
songbooks—the art of the lied as profound as it was ever destined to
be. This Ständchen would almost be at home in Sigmund Romberg’s
Heidelberg-inspired operetta The Student Prince, although that work
has a famous Serenade of its own. The Brahms song has been compared
to the charming and amusing paintings of the Biedermeier artist Carl
Spitzweg: it has charm, grace and compositional skill, but it lacks
the deep personal touch to which we have become accustomed in
the composer’s great lieder. Brahms found the anodyne poem in
the art-historian Franz Kugler’s Gedichte (1840), although the poem
had already appeared in that Renaissance man’s Skizzenbuch (1830),
wherein every drawing, poem and piece of music (including the first-
ever setting of Chamisso’s Frauenliebe und -leben) is Kugler’s own work.
Flute, fiddle and zither are mentioned in the poem’s second verse (and
occasion a famous interlude where these instruments are allowed to let
FRANZ KUGLER rip under the pianist’s rippling fingers), but the opening music suggests
a strummed guitar. All is prancing delight between the hands, an energy moderated by dream-like longing. The joining-
in of the voice at the end of the fourth bar produces a contrapuntal weave as delicate as moonbeams or water gently
plashing in the garden’s fountain. The minor-key shading of ‘Stille’ (denoting some kind of exciting conspiracy), the
implied parenthesis of ‘im Schatten’, the way the three serenaders gradually become bold enough to sing their hearts
out (an upbeat repeat of ‘singen und spielen dabei’)—these details add immeasurably to the pleasing shape of the
whole. The third verse is a musical repeat of the first where the same music serves the words equally well—Brahms
can be a master of strophic songs when he chooses to be. But there is a new level of intimacy at the end as the
message ‘Vergiß nicht mein’ is whispered in the ear of a particular blonde. As often is the way with this composer, the
differentiation of expression, via rubato and colour change, is left entirely to the performers’ discretion. Some singers
(like Elisabeth Schumann) have taken outrageous liberties here to great poetical effect: unlike the meticulous and
ever-controlling Hugo Wolf, Brahms often leaves such choices to the instincts of his interpreters.
Six songs from the Deutsche Volkslieder WoO33
Assembled as a collection in Vienna in the winter of 1893–94, although most of the settings were composed earlier, published in 1894.

cq Da unten im Tale

WoO33 No 6. E major (original key),  Sanft bewegt
Down there in the valley

Da unten im Tale Down there in the valley

Läufts Wasser so trüb, the water runs so murkily,
Und i kann dirs nit sagen, and I cannot tell you
I hab di so lieb. how much I love you.

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 Sprichst allweil von Lieb’, You speak only of love,
Sprichst allweil von Treu, speak only of constancy,
Und a bissele Falschheit and a bit of falsehood
Is au wohl dabei. goes with it too.
Und wenn i dirs zehnmal sag, And if I tell you ten times
Daß i di lieb, that I love you,
Und du willst nit verstehen, muß i and you don’t understand, I shall
Halt weiter gehn. have to go on my way.
Für die Zeit, wo du g’liebt mi hast, For the time that you loved me,
Dank i dir schön, I give you thanks,
Und i wünsch daß dirs anderswo and wish that elsewhere
Besser mag gehn. you might fare better.
A real favourite of the recital platform, this is a genuine folk song from Swabia which Brahms found on page 383 of the
second Zuccalmaglio volume (both words and music) where the title is Trennung. He had already used these words in
1886 for a lied setting with his own melody (Trennung, Op 97 No 6). For that song, Brahms had invented a folk-song-
style tune of his own, but this is a case when the age-old melody as heard here is more memorable. In Trennung we
encounter some of the same piano-writing, in the postlude particularly, that was recycled eight years later in Da unten
im Tale. Brahms adopts a gently mournful approach to the scenario (in some performances this song can be heart-
breaking), but the song was apparently collected from a pair of country maidens who had known the melody from
childhood and performed it with a merry lilt.
cr Es war eine schöne Jüdin There was a beautiful Jewess
WoO33 No 9. D major (original key E major),  Herzlich und warm erzählend
Es war eine schöne Jüdin, There was a beautiful Jewess,
Ein wunderschönes Weib, a wondrously beautiful woman,
Die hatt eine schöne Tochter, she had a beautiful daughter,
Das Haar war ihr geflochten, her hair was braided,
Zum Tanz war sie bereit. she was ready for the dance.
„Ach, Mutter, liebste Mutter, ‘Ah, mother, dearest mother,
Mein Herz tut mir so weh: my heart is hurting so:
Laß mich eine kleine Weile let me for a little while
Spazieren auf grüner Heide, walk on the green meadow
Bis daß mir besser wird.“ until I feel better.’
Die Mutter wandt den Rücken, The mother turned her back,
Die Tochter sprang in die Gaß, the daughter hurried onto the street
Wo alle Schreiber saßen: where all the scribes were sitting:
„Ach, liebster, liebster Schreiber, ‘Ah, dearest, dearest scribe,
Mir tut mein Herz so weh.“ my heart is hurting so.’

33
 „Wenn du dich lassest taufen, ‘If you will be baptized,
Mein Weibchen sollst du sein.“ then you shall be my wife.’
„Eh ich mich lasse taufen, ‘Before I be baptized,
Lieber will ich mich versaufen I’d sooner drown myself
Ins tiefe, tiefe Meer.“ in the deep, deep sea.’
„Gut Nacht, mein Vater und Mutter, ‘Goodnight, father and mother,
Wie auch mein stolzer Bruder, and my haughty brother too,
Ihr seht mich nimmermehr! you shall never see me again!
Die Sonne ist untergegangen The sun has set
Im tiefen, tiefen Meer.“ in the deep, deep sea.’
The song briefly revisits an important theme already experienced on this album: dialogues of mothers and daughters.
The scene of a mother weaving the braids of her daughter’s hair is also reminiscent of Der Kranz (track 9 ). At a time
when many Jews were baptized in order to get on in life (Mendelssohn and Heine were famous examples, although both
later complained that they would rather it had not happened), this is the story of a girl who would rather die than convert,
and all for losing the chance of marrying. The scribe plays a passing role in the story; is he the intended bridegroom?
And if the girl is understandably keen to escape her mother’s control and see the outside world, it seems strange that
she should die for a religion which at that time forbad women this very kind of freedom. This has the signs of a much
longer story shortened for the sake of convenience. There is a Scottish version of the tale in Herder, and two versions in
Zuccalmaglio (who claims the text is from the Harz mountains) where Brahms found the text and melody (Volume I,
page 126). The accompaniment, more complex in the third and fourth verses, is beautifully worked out, even if the final
farewell and suicide remain steadfastly in the major key.
cs Der Reiter spreitet seinen Mantel aus
WoO33 No 23. G sharp minor (original key B minor),  Heimlich und in ruhigem Zeitmass
The horseman spreads out his cloak

Der Reiter spreitet seinen Mantel aus, The horseman spreads out his cloak
Wohl in das grüne Gras: on the green grass:
Da leg dich, du wackres Braunmägdelein, lie there, you fine swarthy girl,
Mach dir dein Haupt nicht naß, take care not to wet your hair
Wohl in dem grünen Gras! on the green grass!
„Was soll ich bei dir sitzen, ‘Why should I sit beside you,
Ich hab gar gringes Gut! I have so little to offer!
Hab zwei schwarzbraune Augen, Two dark-brown eyes
Ist all mein Hab und Gut, are all that I possess,
Ist all mein Hab und Gut.“ are all that I possess.’

34
 „Mein Liebster ist hereingestiegen ‘My lover climbed in
Wohl durchs Kammerfensterlein, through the bedroom window;
Ich hatt ihn nicht gerufen, I had not invited him,
Konnt ihn nicht halten ein, I could not stop him,
Konnt ihn nicht halten ein.“ could not stop him.’
This is another strange song, a further example of suspiciously sourced Zuccalmaglio, with a story that does not make
conventional sense. The first two strophes are clear enough and it looks like the sort of narrative that will lead to a dark
story of rape. And then suddenly the girl is telling the story (to whom?) of her lover visiting her unbidden in her bedroom.
Is he the rapist? What is the connection between the rider and the boyfriend? Or is the rider, after all, the same as ‘Mein
Liebster’? Both men seem to be after the same thing. Brahms’s accompaniment is the same for all three of these rather
mysterious verses. The quavers of the accompaniment, rather Schubertian yet strangely modal, may have been intended
to represent someone prancing along on a horse.
ct Es war ein Markgraf überm Rhein
WoO33 No 29. G minor (original key A minor),  Ruhig, in erzählendem Ton
There was a margrave who lived across the Rhine

Es war ein Markgraf überm Rhein, There was a margrave who lived across the Rhine,
Der hatt drei schöne Töchterlein. he had three beautiful daughters.
Zwei Töchter früh heiraten weg, Two of the daughters married young,
Die dritt hat ihn ins Grab gelegt; the third, she laid him in his grave;
Dann ging sie sing’n vor Schwesters Tür: then she went to sing at her sister’s door:
„Ach braucht ihr keine Dienstmagd hier?“ ‘Ah, don’t you need a serving-maid here?’
„Ei Mädchen, du bist viel zu fein, ‘What, my girl, you are much too grand,
Du gehst gern mit den Herrelein.“ you like to mix with the gentry.’
„Ach nein, ach nein, das tu ich nicht, ‘Ah no, that is not true,
Mein Ehre mir viel lieber ist.“ my honour means much more to me.’
Sie dingt das Mägdlein auf ein Jahr, She hires the girl for one year,
Das Mägdlein dient ihr sieben Jahr. the girl serves her for seven.
Und als die sieben Jahr warn um, And when the seven years were past,
Da ward das Mägdlein schwach und krank. the girl became sick and weak.
„Ach Mägdlein, wenn du krank sollst sein, ‘Ah, my girl, if you are going to be ill,
So sag, wer deine Eltern sein?“ tell me who your parents are?’
„Mein Vater war Markgraf am Rhein, ‘My father was margrave by the Rhine,
Ich bin sein jüngstes Töchterlein.“ I am his youngest daughter.’
„Ach nein, ach nein, das glaub ich nicht, ‘Ah no, ah no, I do not believe
Daß du mein jüngste Schwester bist.“ that you are my youngest sister.’
„Und wenn du mir nicht glauben willst, ‘If you will not believe me,
So geh an meine Kiste her, then go to my coffer there,
Daran tut es geschrieben stehn, on which my name is written—
Da kannst du’s mit dein’n Augen sehn.“ you can see it with your own eyes.’

35
 Und als sie an die Kiste kam, And when she came to the coffer,
Da rannen ihr die Tränen ab: the tears ran down her cheeks:
„Ach, bringt mir Weck, ach, bringt mir Wein, ‘Ah, bring me bread, ah, bring me wine,
Das ist mein jüngstes Schwesterlein!“ that is my youngest sister!’
„Ich will kein Weck, ich will kein Wein, ‘I want no bread, I want no wine,
Will nur ein kleines Särgelein!“ I want nothing but a small coffin!’
The melody of this song is at least as old as the Wiener Gesangbuch of 1775, and the words go back to Des Knaben
Wunderhorn (1810). It appears on page 7 of the first Zuccalmaglio volume. In the absence of the much-loved mother-
and-daughter scenario, this song is about siblings. We are told that the sister who ends up penniless and looking for work
after the death of her father seeks out one of the two siblings who left home early to marry, but how young must she have
been that her own sister does not recognize her as an adult? The melody is a beautiful one with a touching conclusion,
and Brahms, ever discreet in terms of his respect for the genre, does not get in the way. The accompaniment for the third
and fourth verses—the conversation between sisters before they are revealed to be such—moves into flowing quavers,
suggesting affectionate dialogue.
cu Du mein einzig Licht
WoO33 No 37. G major (original key A major),  Kräftig und ziemlich lebhaft
You my only light

Du mein einzig Licht, You my only light,

Die Lilj und Ros hat nicht, the lily and the rose have no
Was an Farb und Schein colour or radiance
Dir möcht ähnlich sein; to compare with yours;
Nur daß dein stolzer Mut only your proud spirit
Der Schönheit unrecht tut. does injustice to your beauty.
Meine Heimat du, You are my homeland,
Von welcher Lust und Ruh whose delight and peace
Ist der Himmel gar cannot be found even in heaven
Wie die Erde bar. nor on earth;
Nur daß dein strenges Wort only your stern words
Mich weht vom süßen Port. blow me away from the sweet haven.
HEINRICH ALBERT (1604 –1651)
This is a wonderful melody that one feels Brahms might have been capable of composing in one of his moments of
inspired pastiche; but it is in fact very old—one of the 170 songs of Heinrich Albert (1604–1651), a cousin of Heinrich
Schütz who lived and worked in Königsberg. The accompaniment, with its stentorian octave basses, portentous cadences
and piquant harmonic clashes, is entirely Brahmsian, with flowing quavers animating the second verse of the song like
an organ improvisation. As in many instances in this collection—and Brahms would nod vociferously in agreement:
the whole point of doing it, he would say—the composer is not responsible for the song’s best features, its amazing
tune and beautiful text. These seem to represent perfectly the depth and honesty of German music more than a hundred
years before the emergence of the piano-accompanied lied.

36
 dl Es steht ein Lind
WoO33 No 41. A flat major (original key C major),  Zart und ausdrucksvoll
A lime tree stands

Es steht ein Lind in jenem Tal, A lime tree stands in that valley;
Ach Gott, was tut sie da? ah, God, what is it doing there?
Sie will mir helfen trauren, trauren, It will help me to mourn, to mourn
Daß ich mein’ Lieb’ verloren hab’. that I have lost my love.
Es sitzt ein Vöglein auf dem Zaun, A little bird sits on the fence;
Ach Gott, was tut es da? ah, God, what is it doing there?
Es will mir helfen klagen, klagen, It will help me to grieve, to grieve,
Daß ich mein’ Lieb’ verloren hab’. that I have lost my love.
Es quillt ein Brünnlein auf dem Plan, A little stream flows over the plain;
Ach Gott, was tut es da? ah, God, what is it doing there?
Es will mir helfen weinen, weinen, It will help me to weep, to weep,
Daß ich mein’ Lieb’ verloren hab’. that I have lost my love.
WILHELM TAPPERT (1830 –1907)
It seems rather disappointing that the words of this very famous (and justly so) song are by Brahms’s contemporary
Wilhelm Tappert (1830–1907); the composer was never one to allow scholarship—much less concerns about
anachronism—to ruin what was otherwise a good artistic product. The melody is old, from the fifty-eight Deutsche
Lieder, a collection of 1550. Brahms added a prelude and an accompaniment with just enough chromaticism to make
it interesting, not quite enough to occasion a flagrant breach of style—again one is reminded of organ improvisation.
This is one of the songs in the collection (and this is also the case with Du mein einzig Licht and the concluding song
in the collection, In stiller Nacht, zur ersten Wacht) that have found a permanent and beloved place in the recital
repertoire, often as encores on the concert platform.
Notes by GRAHAM JOHNSON © 2020
English translations by RICHARD STOKES, author of The Book of Lieder (Faber & Faber, 2005)
with thanks to George Bird, co-author of The Fischer-Dieskau Book of Lieder (Victor Gollancz Ltd, 1976)

37
 Also in this series
The Songs of Johannes Brahms – 1 CDJ33121
ANGELIKA KIRCHSCHLAGER mezzo-soprano, GRAHAM JOHNSON piano
‘Yet another absorbing and invaluable encyclopaedia of a songmaster’s life and
work’ (BBC Music Magazine)
The Songs of Johannes Brahms – 2 CDJ33122
CHRISTINE SCHÄFER soprano, GRAHAM JOHNSON piano
‘The generous and imaginatively planned anthology that we have come to expect
from these important series compiled by Graham Johnson’ (BBC Music Magazine)
The Songs of Johannes Brahms – 3 CDJ33123
SIMON BODE tenor, GRAHAM JOHNSON piano
‘Bode sings with a fine sense of artistry and wonderment’ (BBC Music Magazine)
The Songs of Johannes Brahms – 4 CDJ33124
ROBERT HOLL bass-baritone, GRAHAM JOHNSON piano
‘This disc, while the whole recital has notable integrity and quality, would be worth
having for these last songs alone’ (International Record Review)
The Songs of Johannes Brahms – 5 CDJ33125
CHRISTOPHER MALTMAN baritone, GRAHAM JOHNSON piano
‘A compelling, illuminating partnership’ (Gramophone)
The Songs of Johannes Brahms – 6 CDJ33126
IAN BOSTRIDGE tenor, GRAHAM JOHNSON piano
‘Bostridge is totally convincing … Johnson, that poet of the piano, underpins
everything with just the right level of ardour’ (The Observer)
The Songs of Johannes Brahms – 7 CDJ33127
BENJAMIN APPL baritone, GRAHAM JOHNSON piano
‘Johnson is alive to every juicy nuance of the richly detailed accompaniments …
[Appl] brings many beautiful details to his reading’ (BBC Music Magazine)’
The Songs of Johannes Brahms – 8 CDJ33128
HARRIET BURNS soprano, GRAHAM JOHNSON piano
‘Harriet Burns spins a pure line and responds sensitively to the echt-Brahmsian
moods of loneliness, regret and pathos’ (Gramophone)’
The Songs of Johannes Brahms – 9 CDJ33129
ROBIN TRITSCHLER tenor, GRAHAM JOHNSON piano
‘Tritschler’s fresh, beautifully focused tenor is an expressive joy here, and Johnson’s
liner notes are … as enjoyable and as immersive as his playing’ (BBC Record Review)

38
 SOPHIE RENNERT
Described by David Nice in The Arts Desk as ‘a mezzo of many colours, subtlety, dramatic intelligence and a crucially
brilliant top’, Austrian mezzo-soprano Sophie Rennert was a member of the Young Singers Project at the 2013 Salzburg
Festival, and a prizewinner of both the 2014 International Mozart Competition Salzburg and the 2016 Cesti Innsbrucker
Festwochen der Alten Musik.
First taught by her mother, Sigrid Rennert, before studying with Karlheinz Hanser and Charles Spencer at Vienna’s
University of Music and Performing Arts (MDW), Sophie was a member of the Konzert Theater Bern from 2014 to 2016,
and has since been a freelance musician. Sophie’s operatic repertoire ranges from Baroque works by Purcell, Rameau,
Handel and Vivaldi, through Mozart and operetta to contemporary works. She has enjoyed great success playing Idamante
in Idomeneo, the title role in Handel’s Lotario, Angelina in Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and Harper Pitt in Peter Eötvös’s
Angels in America.
A versatile artist, Sophie has established herself as a concert singer, working with renowned orchestras such as the Vienna
Philharmonic Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Orquesta Nacional de España and the Gothenburg
Symphony Orchestra at the Salzburg, Bayreuth, and Göttingen International Handel festivals, among others. The list of
conductors with whom she has worked is extensive, and includes David Afkham, Ivor Bolton, Semyon Bychkov, Laurence
Cummings, Ádám Fischer, Hartmut Haenchen, Philippe Jordan, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Marc Piollet and Andreas
Spering.
With distinguished accompanists such as Graham Johnson, Joseph Middleton, Helmut Deutsch and Julius Drake,
Sophie has been invited to give recitals at the Schubertiade, Vienna Musikverein, Vienna Konzerthaus, Wigmore Hall,
Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Elbphilharmonie Hamburg.

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 GRAHAM JOHNSON
Graham Johnson is recognized as one of the world’s leading vocal accompanists. Born in Rhodesia, he came to London
to study in 1967. After leaving the Royal Academy of Music, his teachers included Gerald Moore and Geoffrey Parsons.
In 1972 he was the official pianist at Peter Pears’s first masterclasses at Snape Maltings, which brought him into contact
with Benjamin Britten—a link that strengthened his determination to accompany. In 1976 he formed The Songmakers’
Almanac to explore neglected areas of piano-accompanied vocal music, and throughout his career he has maintained
long and fruitful collaborations with many distinguished singers.
Graham Johnson’s relationship with Wigmore Hall in London is a special one. He devised and accompanied concerts in
the hall’s re-opening series in 1992, and in its centenary celebrations in 2001. He is Senior Professor of Accompaniment
at the Guildhall School of Music and has led a biennial scheme for Young Songmakers since 1985. He has had a lasting
and rewarding link with Hyperion, for whom he has conceived and accompanied sets of the complete songs of Schubert
and Schumann, as well as a substantial proportion of the wider Hyperion French song edition. He is author of The
Songmakers’ Almanac: Twenty years of recitals in London, The French Song Companion (OUP, 2000), Britten:
Voice and Piano (Ashgate, 2003), Gabriel Fauré: the Songs and their Poets (Ashgate, 2009) and Franz Schubert:
the Complete Songs (Yale, 2014). Awards include four Gramophone awards (three for albums in the Schubert and
Schumann series) and the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Instrumentalist of the Year in 1998; he is a member of the
Royal Swedish Academy of Music, and an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society. He was made an OBE
in the 1994 Queen’s Birthday Honours list, and in 2002 he was created Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by
the French government. He is a Doctor of Music honoris causa on three continents: at Durham in the UK, Boston’s New
England Conservatory in the USA, and Perth in Western Australia.

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41 www.hyperion-records.co.uk