Brahms Complete Songs

Brahms was opposed to the Lied cultivated by the "New German" circle of composers around Franz Liszt who developed it into a highly artificial art form.

For Brahms, folk songs were sources of musical inspiration, not subjects for academic study.

This first volume of Brahms’ complete songs spans a period of nearly 25 years. A prolific composer of Lieder, Brahms’ adherence to traditional form was accompanied by a modern approach to compositional style. Thematically, most songs explore ideas of love, loneliness and solitude, perfectly exemplified by the Vier Gesänge, Op. 43.

In grouping his Lieder into sets with opus numbers, Brahms was concerned with thematic unity and poetic contrasts. The theme of Op. 71 is love, whether ardent, ironic or courtly, and contains one of his best-loved songs, Minnelied. In Op. 70 the connections are more subtle: past, present and future create the thematic framework. The serenity of Op. 95 is heightened through the use of Serbian folk songs, and for the Op. 107 set Brahms once again illuminates love in all its intensity and humour.

Brahms' early songs express an exuberance that may surprise those who are unfamiliar with this element of his music making.

Brahms was opposed to the Lied cultivated by the "New German" circle of composers around Franz Liszt who developed it into a highly artificial art form. In the books of the 49 Deutsche Volkslieder Brahms discovered a repository of dialogue songs, narrative ballads, laments, and songs of disputation and love, some tragic, others comic, that appealed to his need for authenticity. The book from which he sourced the songs had a printed text and melody, so Brahms’ artistic contribution lay in his richly varied piano accompaniments which subtly comment, heighten, inflect or expand on the texts.

For Brahms, folk songs were sources of musical inspiration, not subjects for academic study. The songs from Books 6 and 7 of the Deutsche Volkslieder exemplify how Brahms’ distinctive and expressive accompaniments brought unique qualities to these songs, how he intensified certain verses to draw out their power, or allowed the piano its own revealing melodic phrases. In Book 7 the songs are divided between a lead singer and a chorus, adding fresh musical possibilities. In the Volkskinderlieder (‘Children’s Folk Songs’) Brahms’ economy and deftness turn lullabies into works of art.

In grouping his Lieder into sets with opus numbers, Brahms was concerned with thematic unity and poetic contrasts. The theme of Op. 71 is love, whether ardent, ironic or courtly, and contains one of his best-loved songs, Minnelied. In Op. 70 the connections are more subtle: past, present and future create the thematic framework. The serenity of Op. 95 is heightened through the use of Serbian folk songs, and for the Op. 107 set Brahms once again illuminates love in all its intensity and humour.Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt (‘None but the lonely heart’), probably the best known of Tchaikovsky’s songs, lends its name to an intimate theatrical evening in which Christof Loy has combined songs or ‘romances’ and instrumental music to create a chamber opera of striking beauty and intensity. Tchaikovsky’s songs cover a stylistic diversity unsurpassed by other Russian composers, often setting enigmatic texts in which the unsaid and unsayable create expressive tensions and encapsulate true human emotions. Given a sumptuous period setting, these qualities create a unique drama in which suppressed love is confronted with longed for moments of passion, and sadness over broken relationships leads to withdrawal and loneliness.