Nachtigallen schwingen lustig Op.6 No.6 (1853)

In Waldeseinsamkeit Op.85 No.6 (1878)

In der Ferne Op.19 No.3 (1858)

Nachtigallen schwingen lustig Op.6 No.6    (1853)

An die Nachtigall Op.46 No.4 (by 1868)

Nachtigall Op.97 No.1 (by 1885)

As Coleridge declared, in his dismissal of the romantic notion that the nightingale is the most musical and most melancholy bird, “in Nature there is nothing melancholy.” Anyone who    hears melancholy in the song of the nightingale is a “poor wretch” making “all gentle sounds tell back the tale of his own sorrow.” Happily, true though Coleridge’s observation is, romantic poets and composers persisted in their subjective reactions to bird song. A particularly beautiful example occurs at the end of Brahms’s In Waldeseinsamkeit where the distant nightingale tells back the poignant tale of a preciously intimate experience. In der Ferne is a classic case of the poet’s identification with nature: beginning in the minor, it turns to the major in preparation for birds singing love songs and, with a change of piano figuration, flowers blooming as pledges.

The first stanza of Nachtigallen schwingen, exultant in the triplet rhythms and fanfare harmonies of the piano part, is a virtuoso evocation of not just one nightingale but a whole flock of them. As the subsiding rhythmic impetus and the displaced harmonies in the second stanza suggest, however, the poet’s thoughts are elsewhere. The triplet rhythms are resumed to combine with the original harmonies but the impetus fails again as his worst fears prove all too true. In An die Nachtigall too the nightingale brings more sorrow than joy. Its song arouses not only thoughts of love but also a sense of loss, causing such pain, expressed by Brahms in strongly emphasised dissonances, that far from welcoming its sweet song the poet dismisses the bird from the apple tree to the obscurity of the woods. Nachtigall, on the other hand, is based on a poem Coleridge could have approved of. The song of the nightingale, so charmingly represented in the piano part, seems to cause pain but, as the poet knows, it is only a faint echo, even more magically reflected in the closing bars, of a    heavenly song now lost.

Verzagen Op.72 No.4 (1877)

Über die Heide Op.86 No.4 (by 1882)

An eine Äolsharfe Op.19 No.5 (1858)

Auf dem Kirchhofe Op.105 No.4 (by 1888)

Wir wandelten Op.96 No.2 (by 1885)

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

An die Nachtigall Op.46 No.4 (by 1868)

Es schauen die Blumen Op.96 No.3 (by 1885)

Nachtwandler Op.86 No.3 (1877)

Abenddämmerung Op.49 No.5 (1867)

The first three songs of the Brahms group are all based on poems inspired by the essentially romantic theme of alienation from nature through personal disillusionment. Although the nature of the poet’s unease in Nachtigallen schwingen lustig is not precisely defined, Brahms’s scoring indicates that he is aware of the joy of spring around him but that when he looks inward, in a different key and a mood of longing, he cannot share it. There is no consolation in the sea that surges so impressively and foams so vividly in the piano part of Verzagen. The experience inevitably ends in tears. In Über die Heide, his trudging footsteps echoing in the piano part, the traveller finds no kinship with the autumn mists and blackened heather of a place where spring and love now seem so very distant.

The difference between the Brahms and Wolf treatments of An eine Äolsharfe is that, whereas the latter sets the harp, the former sets the words. This is not to say that Brahms is not interested in the sound of the wind on the strings. Like Wolf, after an introductory recitative he presents an image of arpeggios rising mainly in triplets in the left hand of the piano part. But, while his harmonic wind also bloweth where it listeth, it is in support of a high-profile melodic line shaped by the text and carried by the voice, often in unison with the pianist’s right hand.

One of the happier experiences of Brahms’s later years was his friendship with the contralto Hermine Spies, whom he first met when she took part in a performance of his Gesang der Parzen in Krefeld in 1883 and whose artistry and personality inspired his continuing interest in the Lied. Born twenty-four years after the composer, she died four years before him. Auf dem Kirchhofe might almost be a premonition of that sad event. But even here there is consolation, as the gusty piano arpeggios that blow cold minor harmonies over the first six lines of the song give way to an allusion in the major to the Lutheran chorale “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden” in anticipation of the final “genesen.”

Wir wandelten and Von ewiger Lieber come as timely representatives of happiness in love. In the first the canonic texture symbolising the lovers as they walk together is transcended by a magical modulation (“Eines sag ich”) and a middle section of unspoken thoughts ringing, as the piano part confirms, like little golden bells. 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 Clara “she sat there in silence… her face bathed in tears.”

The message of An die Nachtigall is that love brings more sorrow than joy. As in Nachtigallen schwingen lustig, the song of the nightingale arouses not only thoughts of love but also a sense of loss. In this case it causes such pain, expressed by Brahms in strongly emphasised dissonances, that far from welcoming its sweet song the poet dismisses the bird from the apple tree to the obscurity of the woods. According to Heine’s Es schauen die Blumen, love songs too are melancholy – a sentiment Brahms does not take very seriously, however, in a setting designed as a little study in cross rhythms and defying the implied modality of the text by taking flight in the major at the end.

Although Brahms was not much given to making allusions to his own music, there are exceptional cases, like his setting of Nachtwandler by his friend and biogapher, Max Kalbeck. In creating the dreamy atmosphere of the song he clearly refers to his already famous Wiegenlied, adopting a similar rocking rhythm and similar harmonies in the piano part except that here the thirds in the right hand fluctuate disarmingly, and in a peculiarly Mahlerian manner, between major and minor – reflecting the perilously poised situation of the sleepwalker. There is nothing precarious about Abenddämmerung, which is a masterfully sustained expression of well-being both in this world and the next.