4 Lieder

Spanisches Lied, Op.6 No.1 (1852-3)

Therese Op.86 No.1 (1878)

Der Gang zum Liebchen Op.48 No.1 (1867-8)

Von ewiger Liebe Op.43 No.1 (1864)

One of the earliest of Brahms’s songs, Spanisches Lied is an attractive setting of words that Hugo Wolf would even more memorably set to music in his Spanisches Liederbuch nearly fifty years later in 1890. The text, taken from a recently published collection of translations from the Spanish by Emanuel Geibel and Paul Heyse, fits happily into a fandango rhythm heightened by Brahms’s flirtatious hesitations and modulations. Another interest Brahms and Wolf had in common was the poem that Gottfried Keller first published as Therese in 1846 and then revised and re-issued as Du milchjunger Knabe: Brahms set the first version of the poem in 1878 and Wolf the second version twelve years later. Bearing in mind the unaffected charm of Brahms’s presentation of the first two stanzas of Therese and the poetic deflection of the harmonies in the third, it is difficult to understand why his Keller songs should have earned him Wolf’s description as that “master of the bagpipe and concertina.” But, of course, Brahms and Wolf were on opposite sides of the great musical divide of the day.

Had Wolf applied the same description to the composer of Der Gang zum Liebchen it would not have been quite so offensive, since the text derives from a Bohemian folk song and requires some such popular treatment as the country-dance rhythms that, with the greatest of delicacy, Brahms applies to it. As for Von ewiger Liebe, even Wolf had to admit to an admiration for it, thoroughly characteristic Brahms though it is. Long thought to be a German translation of a Wendish folk song by Joseph Wenzig, the text, it now seems, is by Hoffmann von Fallersleben. Certainly the poetic content of the poem and the language of the lovers are both more sophisticated than the words of any folk song. And, in spite of his use of modal harmonies, Brahms does not treat it like a folk song. Each stanza is set in a different way - the even pace of the walk through the dark and featureless night in the minor, the challenging statement of the boy to a heroic melody in the same key, and the rhythmically lilting reply of the girl in sweetly chromatic harmonies followed by her radiantly emphatic conclusion in the tonic major.

Vergebliches Ständchen Op.84 No.4 (by 1882)

Der Gang Zum Liebchen Op.48 No.1 (1859–62)

Meine Liebe ist Grün Op. 63 No.5 (1873)

Von Ewiger Liebe Op.43 No.1 (1864)

Much influenced by Brahms in his song-writing though he was, Berg did not share the older composer’s faith in folk-song simplicity. That quality is exemplified at its best in Vergebliches Ständchen which, Brahms once declared, he would gladly trade for all his other songs. It is not entirely artless of course. The art is in judging just how far one can go in elaborating a folk text without compromising its integrity: in these circumstances a strategy as basic as changing to the minor in the third stanza is an inspiration in terms not only of harmonic variety but also of comic characterisation. Brahms’s treatment of the Bohemian folk text in Der Gang zum Liebchen is only slightly more sophisticated. Set in the minor from the start, it demonstrates that the lover’s anxiety is not too serious by twice having him skip into a charming little Ländler.

Two of the poems set by Brahms in his 9 Lieder und Gesänge Op.63, Meine Liebe ist grün and Wenn um den Holunder, are by his godson Felix Schumann, the youngest child of Robert and Clara Schumann. Felix cannot have known his father, who had been committed to the asylum at Endenich before he was born, but he presumably knew his music, and even if he didn’t appreciate Brahms’s tribute to Robert in his setting of Meine Liebe ist grün Clara surely did. The resemblance to the older composer’s Schöne Fremde (from the Eichendorff Liederkreis) – the ecstatic vocal line, the palpitating syncopations in the pianist’s right hand, the emphatically passionate doublings between voice and piano – is clearly intentional. Certainly, both Clara and Felix (who was to die of tuberculosis six years later) found it a very delightful Christmas present.   

Von ewiger Liebe reverberates with echoes from Brahms’s own life. The girl’s fervent melody in the second half of the song was written originally for a Brautgesang (Bridal Song) for Agathe von Siebold, to whom the composer had been briefly engaged six years earlier. One reason why he broke off the arrangement, it is generally believed, was his continuing attachment to Clara Schumann. It is quite possible of course that the song has no autobiographical relevance at all. Even so, it is tempting to speculate on whether – given the boy’s heroic minor-key declaration in the first half of the song and the girl’s major-key assertion that their bond is unbreakable – it was inspired by his relationship with Clara. Certainly, there is a well-documented story that when Brahms played it to her “she sat there in silence… her face bathed in tears.”