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Muss es eine Trennung geben (from Ballads from Tiecks Magelone, Op. 33, No. 12)

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This reinforces the feeling that Brahms has planned this song as if it were a piece of chamber music with inbuilt repeats. The eight-bar postlude has the piano-writing descending into the bass clef in a mood of rapt contemplation. Lust zu vergeuden Das edele Blut! Nicht Hohn zu erleiden, Wem fehlt es an Mut? Come, dear weapons, Often donned in sport, Protect now my happiness On this new path! What pleasure To shed noble blood! To protect joy, My treasured possession! To suffer no scorn, Who lacks courage for that?

Slacken your reins, Happy night! Spread your wings, So that over distant hills Dawn shall soon smile on us! In fact, before Peter and Magelone make the decision to run away together, Peter once again appears in the jousting lists and he is again victorious while retaining his anonymity.

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During the tournament Peter unseats Sir Henry and is a careful and gracious combatant with his own elderly uncle who fails to recognize him. It is only after this event that the two lovers hatch a plan together to elope. Peter has a lute in his room and it is too big to take with him. In bidding his musical companion farewell he sings what first appears to be a simple and charming serenade. Brahms reverts here to a notion of musical time-travel; there is just a touch of archaic colour to this setting, a courtly pace to the opening music that reminds us that this story is taking place in the time of the troubadours.

The first bar of the right hand is marked mezzo staccato; the composer certainly intended this articulation, suggesting a plucked lute, to apply to similar passages in the whole song. The journey back to Provence will clearly not be an easy one. He has set out as a warrior and now he is returning home with his booty. The idea of spoils of war puts Brahms into a military mood and we hear the muffled drum, triplet demisemiquavers that pervade the second page of the song and appear in both hands.

By the end of this section we have settled unequivocally into the key of F major. This prepares the way for a change of key signature—to B flat major and a new Allegro marking—also alla breve which determines a very brisk tempo. In musical terms this is a kind of set piece with horn and trumpet effects, a call to arms; even on the page it looks more like a chamber music finale than a song accompaniment.

Now there is more water music; as if suddenly gifted with prophecy later in the story Peter will have to confront the might of the sea he imagines himself diving into the waves. The return of the opening Andante is preceded by a four-bar interlude where a succession of minims marked dimin. Murmelt fort, ihr Melodien, Rausche nur, du stiller Bach. Hush, you hidden songsters, And do not disturb her sweetest rest! The thronging birds listen, The noisy songs are stilled, Close your eyes, my love.

Sleep, go to sleep, In the fading light I shall watch over you. Murmur on, you melodies, Babble on, quiet brook, Fair fantasies of love Speak in those melodies, Tender dreams float after them. Through the whispering grove Golden bees are swarming And humming you to sleep. This is certainly the most famous song of the set; since its composition it has been extrapolated from the cycle and included in countless recitals, although this happens less often today than in earlier times.

The key is A flat major but the music is pervaded by an E flat pedal, sometimes harmonized as the second inversion of the tonic, but more often as E flat7. Supported by the cradling lilt of syncopations between left and right hands, Peter sings of his love for the sleeping girl. So hypnotic is the gently rocking motion, so elevated is the tone of this music, that the listener is left in no doubt that this is one of the great songs of the German lied. The beginning of the second verse moves into a different mood—Brahms abandons the hypnotic syncopated accompaniment in favour of oscillating quavers with a suggestion of greater urgency.

After another appearance of that gentle rocking interlude there is a sudden change of mood and tempo. The marking is Animato and four flats are replaced by three sharps, a change from A flat major to A major, a shift upwards of a semitone that dispels the dreams that Brahms has woven for Magelone, and for us. When Brahms is in this mood, urgent and expansive at the same time, his credentials are those of a composer of large piano works and imposing chamber music structures although not yet a published symphony.

The piano partially doubles the voice and over-enthusiastic performers must be careful not to disrupt the rapt atmosphere painstakingly built up on the previous pages. The left hand provides continual support of sextuplets rising up in waves from the bottom of the stave, and the vocal line is ingeniously derived from the lullaby, slow music that is now speeded up and made more dramatic.

This makes for a truly magical coda. For a short time excitement overrules chivalric gallantry and the music burst into flames; but these have been brought under control. The poem proved itself very popular with composers; the more famous of these settings are by Louise Reichardt , Louis Spohr and Robert Franz Denn nimmer wird es gut. Mein Blick wird sich nie mehr erheitern, Den Stern meiner Liebe zu sehn.

Ich bin ein verlorener Mann. I scoff at the raging gales, Scorn the fury of the flood, If only rocks would dash me to pieces! For I shall never thrive. I shall not complain, though I now founder, And perish in watery depths! So thunder down the mountainside, And rage at me, you storms, So that rock shatters on rock!

I am a lost man. It is one of two songs in the sequence of fifteen that has a title that is different from the first line of the poem. It is true that Peter is not actually in the sea, but he is in a boat and surrounded by water. Scuttling semiquavers, fast enough to suggest foaming waves, are underpinned by jabbing left-hand crotchets off the beat. But the staccato triplets of the first verse return, as if now representing the jagged rocks against which Peter will be mercilessly thrown by the waves. The desperation here is gauged by how much the poor pianist is made to suffer: Even Brahms knows this is devilishly difficult, which is shown by the fact that, most unusually, he provides fingering for every note of two of these bars.

For the third verse there is a change of key signature from the three flats of C minor to four flats of A flat major, here more or less treated as A flat minor with the addition of C flat accidentals. The stormy, watery semiquavers now return, five bars of them encompassing a key change back to C minor. The fourth verse of the poem is more or less an exact repeat of the first.

For the postlude Brahms outdoes himself in terms of virtuoso display. As the pianist reaches for the top of his instrument to initiate a more or less precipitous plunge to the bottom, a marking of Molto sostenuto allows a certain rhetorical expansion, in typically Brahmsian manner.

Composer: Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897)

We are borne far away From our beautiful land To a desolate shore, Surrounded by night. This is the second of the three songs in the cycle where the hero Peter steps into the background enabling someone else to contribute to the narrative—in this case Magelone herself. It is interesting that Brahms casts the eponymous heroine in a tonality that suggests he imagines her to be a mezzo-soprano or alto; he was enamoured at various times of his life with singers of this voice range—among them Hermine Spies — and Alice Barbi — The song was later transposed up, but only at the request of the publisher Rieter-Biedermann.

In musical terms this is a set piece where the mordent in the third full bar of the introduction implies a subtle attempt at archaism; it may also suggest that the music is meant to be a ballad that was already age-old when Magelone learned it. This is in fact a modified strophic song par excellence: Once the key changes back to F minor we move on to the fifth, sixth and seventh strophes.

The form of this is A ending in the dominant —D—A. Of course the ear takes in this rather complicated structure as something much easier to comprehend. In verse 6 there are a few highly agitated bars of accompaniment denoting the shipwreck of life—throbbing left-hand semiquavers that encompass downward leaps of two octaves. Gibt es denn kein wahres Lieben? Muss denn Schmerz und Trennung sein? Aber so muss ich nun klagen: Wo ist Hoffnung, als das Grab? Fern muss ich mein Elend tragen, Heimlich bricht das Herz mir ab. Does true love then not exist?

Must there be pain and parting? Had I remained unloved, I should still have a gleam of hope. But this must now be my lament: Where is hope but in the grave? I must bear my grief far away, Secretly my heart is breaking. Fortunately, in the realm of this kind of fairy tale, sex never rears its head, ugly or otherwise. Tieck specifies the accompanying instrument as a zither and this may account for the accompaniment in semiquavers that sweeps across the stave, always in a downward direction, suggesting resignation and hopelessness.

Like Mark Antony in Egypt he has become too accustomed to a new life. The music is both languid and sensual with a magnificent melody. The music for the third verse, organically derived from the first, intensifies as Peter warms to his theme. The composer repeats the last line of the poem, setting it to new music, in order to bring the song to a close: This is a song where the rueful switches between major and minor may well remind us of Schubert; everything else about its layout, and its spacious eloquence, is pure Brahms.

Die Segel, sie schwellen, Die Furcht ist nur Tand: Und sollten sie klagen? Sie rufen nach dir! Sie wissen, sie tragen Die Liebe von hier. This musing and striving Full of torment and joy? The sails are swelling, Your fear is but vain: There beyond the waves Is your fatherland. And why should they grieve? They are summoning you! They know they are taking Love from here. Perhaps it gave Brahms pleasure that he had written a song with a title not dissimilar to that of his favourite Schubert lied— Suleika , D In fact there are other Schubert songs with which Brahms must have been familiar: In Sulima it is the task of the pianist to avoid a sense of a horse-ride in a poem where everything is carried on a breeze with no steed in sight.

In Sulima , as was certainly the case in Suleika , it is possible that some of the chromatic oscillations are meant to convey a kind of Oriental coquetry—the distant tinkling of cymbals and bells. The touches of modal harmony in the cadences that bring some of these strophes to their conclusion may be attributed to the same Oriental influence. The poem is a long one with its eight strophes, and Brahms works hard at avoiding monotony within the structure of a non-stop song.

After a twelve-bar introduction, over in a flash within this Vivace tempo, the first and second strophes of the poem are set to the same fourteen bars of music with repeat marks. Then the third and fourth strophes are run together and set to different music with the same kind of accompaniment that aspect of the song never varies. After another twelve-bar interlude the fifth and sixth strophes are set to the same music with repeat marks. After this, the last two strophes are a recapitulation of the music for the third and fourth.

This is ingenious cross-weaving, and the twelve-bar postlude is an exact mirror of the introduction. Performed within the context of the full cycle the music sounds like an illusory dream, an interruption from an unlikely source, an interpolation that has little do with Peter and Magelone and their ongoing saga; but it is the means by which we may once more engage in the story of their relationship. The stars are mirrored in the sea, And the waves gleam with gold.

I ran reeling this way and that, And was neither bad nor good. In the dear, darkening distance The songs of home are calling, From every star She gazes gently down. Be calmed, O trusty waves, Lead me along distant paths To the much-loved threshold, To happiness at last! It is as if the protagonist has freed himself from a spell and he now is able to turn his boat towards home shores. From the beginning the music is bracing, with a new and almost fanatical sense of purpose. The opening of the song is nothing more than a flourish—two chords in E minor the relative minor of G major—not yet established as the tonic key and two chords that lead to a D major chord.

From this launching pad of the dominant, voice and piano begin together without further ado, in G major. The melody here is a long-limbed nine-bar phrase divided into three breaths with an asymmetry that suggests a ship being tossed hither and thither on the ocean waves. These add a curious judder and frisson to the music if not lost in the swirling nimbus of the pedal contributing to the tension and sense of determination whereby Peter digs in his heels.

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The portentous four-bar Zwischenspiel, entirely based in various permutations of a D7 chord, leads us to believe that something massively important is now about to happen. After this comes a four-bar interlude marked Calmato. This ushers in a modulation dolce to C major.

Everything is now surprisingly natural—halcyon music for becalmed, gentle longing. The song has been an astonishingly well-managed combination of bold, open-air music and intimate reflection. It is as if Peter is better balanced than before; perhaps he has grown up at last. Though death and disaster threaten, Encouraging inconstancy As they throng together—Love pits Loyal blood against such perils. And whatever held the spirit captive Then recedes like mist, And the wide world opens its doors To the cheerful gaze of spring.

Happiness Is achieved, Is compelled by love, Vanished Those hours, They fly away; And blissful delight Stills, Fulfils The ecstatic breast that throbs with delight, May it part From sorrow For ever, And never Fade, this lovely, blissful, heavenly delight!

Brahms now leaves out two sections of the story, each with a poem he declined to set. This lyric was not set by Brahms. The ship that has brought Peter to this island sails without him and Peter collapses in exhaustion and desperation. As Peter approaches the hut he sees a young girl sitting at the door, a lamb at her feet, singing a song. This is his long-lost Magelone of course, but once again Brahms chooses not to set this text—possibly on account of its fourteen-strophe length. The pair lived happily ever after. The final song is thus an epilogue sung in front of the curtain, as it were, a summing-up and a farewell.

The vocal line is in the manner of a chorale, and once again we are reminded that the whole of this story has taken place at a time when Early Music was Contemporary Music. This sets up a repeat of the chorale music that has opened the song, although the accompaniment here is a touch more animated. This in turn leads to a repeat of the music for verse 2, which turns a corner into B flat major as a preparation for the closing movement in the home key of E flat.

The shape of the poetry suddenly changes here with short, breathless lines. This music has a kind of feverish intensity, a lieder-like Ode to Joy, that brings Beethoven to mind, not for the first time in this cycle. Word repetitions abound, and we can imagine an entire chorus joining in for this breathless hymn of thanks. The pianist also has his work cut out with galloping quavers, choppy syncopations between the hands, and virtuosic threes-against-fours.

The chorale returns, as it must. Here it is marked pianissimo, a great deal to ask after what has gone before. It is surely some of the vocal difficulties in this stamina-challenging song that have inclined singers to defer the challenge of this cycle to another season, or even another lifetime. Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. Don't show me this message again.

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He was very skilled in the use of weapons; no one could wield a lance as well as he. Bogen und Pfeil After travelling for many days he arrived at the lordly city of Naples. He had comforted himself a little. And so they spent the day. Christopher Maltman baritone , Graham Johnson piano. Graham Johnson is both accompanist and curator of this series that presents the entire piano-accompan Elly Ameling soprano , Rudolf Jansen piano. Keinen hat es noch gereut. Johann Ludwig Tieck No man yet has rued Mounting his steed In the first flush of youth To fly through the world.

Strange visions Flit past, Passionate desire Burns in the heady emotions of youth. Op 33 No 2, composed in Hamburg in July , published as the second song of Book 1 in September Are these sorrows, are these joys That steal through my heart?

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All my old desires depart, A thousand new flowers blossom. Op 33 No 3, composed in Hamburg in July , published as the third song of Book 1 in September Love came from far-off lands And no one followed her, And the goddess beckoned me, Binding me in sweet bonds. So ist es kein Traum? Is it, then, no dream? How the streams ripple, How the waves resound, How the tree rustles!

Op 33 No 5, composed in Hamburg in May , published as the second song of Book 2 in September How then shall I bear the joy And how the bliss? So that, beneath the pulsing Of my heart, my soul will not escape? Op 33 No 6, composed in Hamburg in May , published as the third song of Book 2 in September Was it for you these lips quivered, For you, that sweetly proffered kiss? Can earthly life give such joy? Op 33 No 7, composed between and possibly before 6 March , published as the first song of Book 3 in December An autograph of the song, unsigned and undated, as well as an autograph transposition, are in the Library of Congress, Washington DC.

We must part, Beloved lute, It is time to race Toward the distant, longed-for goal. Op 33 No 8, composed between and possibly before September , published as the second song of Book 3 in December Schlafe, schlaf ein, Leiser rauscht der Hain— Ewig bin ich dein. Rest, my sweetheart, in the shadow Of this green, fading night; The grass rustles on the meadows, The shadow fans and cools you, And faithful love keeps watch.

Sleep, go to sleep, The grove rustles more gently now, I am yours for evermore. Resound, then, foaming waves, And coil yourselves around me! Let misfortune rage loud around me, And let the cruel sea roar! Doch wir erwachen Zu tiefer Qual: How soon they vanish, Radiance and light, Morning finds The garland withered That yesterday glowed In such splendour, For its flowers faded In dark night.

The wave of life Rolls onwards, Though bright its hue, It profits nothing. The sun sets, The red glow departs, The shadows rise And darkness draws on: Auf, gebet uns das Pfingstei Text: Die heilige Elisabeth Text: Der tote Gast Text: Der getreue Eckart Text: Der Tochter Wunsch Text: Die Wollust in den Maien Text: Dort in den Weiden Text: Von edler Art Text: Ach lieber Herre Jesu Christ Text: Keinen hat es noch gereut Text: Bogen und Pfeil Text: Sind es Schmerzen, sind es Freuden Text: Liebe kam aus fernen Landen Text: So willst du des Armen Text: Wie soll ich die Freude Text: War es dir, dem diese Lippen bebten Text: Wie schnell verschwindet Text: Geliebter, wo zaudert Text: Wie froh und frisch mein Sinn sich hebt Text: Treue Liebe dauert lange Text: O bone Jesu Text: Adoramus te, Christe Text: Ich aber bin elend Text: Ach, arme Welt Text: Selig sind, die da Leid tragen Text: Denn alles Fleisch ist wie Gras Text: Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen Text: Ihr habt nun Traurigkeit Text: Denn wir haben hie keine bleibende Statt Text: Selig sind die Toten Text: Wenn ein starker Gewappneter seinen Palast bewahret Text: Am Gesteine rauscht die Flut Text: O die Frauen, o die Frauen Text: Wenn so lind dein Auge mir Text: O wie sanft die Quelle sich Text: Nein, es ist nicht auszukommen mit den Leuten Text: Sieh, wie ist die Welle klar Text: Ein dunkeler Schacht ist Liebe Text: Ruf zur Maria Text: When the vocal line begins, the triplets transfer to the right hand.

These trills become an ongoing feature of this music, appearing in both hands, as if being lobbed back and forth between different sides of the court in a musical tennis match. The pulsating heartbeats mentioned in the text can be heard in the triplets; the trills clearly represent some extra frisson—a spasm of joy or fear, or possibly both. The way they are deployed between the treble and bass clefs suggests a musical colloquy, perhaps one that represents a hoped-for, and imagined, meeting between Peter and Magelone—at any rate, something not yet quite achieved.

When that happens, the trilling piano tells us, they would be as happy with each other as two cooing doves. For the third verse of the poem, triplets change into quavers. Even more important is the change of key signature to the far shores of F sharp major where Peter can dream of a future, almost unimaginable, happiness. For forty-six bars of triplets we are caught within the euphony of undulating thirds or sixths in this all-pervasive rhythm. By now this music exerts a kind of hypnotic effect that borders on the quietly obsessive.

After all, he is nearly halfway through his cycle and he has not even managed to talk to the object of his affections. This occasions a return Poco animato of the opening ritornello—not in A major this time, but in F sharp minor. In fact D minor is then juxtaposed with E7 and a sudden change of tempo to Vivace, ma non troppo. With only four lines of the poem left we are on track to return to the home key of A major, but not before another massive, symphonically planned upbeat—eight bars of pianistic introduction—with semiquavers devilishly difficult to articulate clearly; these scamper up and down on an elongated E pedal.

We have had the cantabile part of the aria, and now we must end with a rousing cabaletta. Brahms, like Schubert, challenges the pianist with a fleeting semiquaver figuration. Brahms places both staves of the accompaniment in the treble clef; after eight bars the left hand strays further and further by degrees into the bass region.

The final line of the poem is set to an impassioned triplet accompaniment that initially seems to be bringing the song to a close. But because the song is so exciting and because Brahms has a kind of control of larger structures denied to many lesser song composers, it works magnificently.

It is only with what now follows that he risks piling Pelion on Ossa with a coda, harmonies pivoting and rollicking, all in a frenzy, as if under the baton of a merciless maestro sawing his way through a symphonic finale. Even this, however, fails to detract from the overall power of this inventive and astonishing song. In those clear eyes gleamed A longing that tenderly beckoned me, Everything echoed in my heart, I lowered my gaze, And the breezes resounded with songs of love!

Like twin stars Her eyes shone, her cheeks Cradled her golden hair, Her looks and smiles took Wing, and her sweet words Awoke deepest longing: O kiss, how your red lips burned! There I died, and first found life in sweetest death. Robert Schumann had, of course, composed his Spanische Liebeslieder , Op , for SATB with piano-duet accompaniment in ; it is generally accepted that Brahms adopted and adapted this title when he came to write his Liebeslieder Waltzes , Op 52, for vocal quartet, also with piano duet, in There are other songs in this set that are more imposing, more dramatic, more deeply felt, but none that is more charming.

The accompaniment is gratifying to play: In the second verse the vocal line and the accompaniment part musical company, each of them nurturing a different melody. Brahms thereby took the opportunity to write another waltz with a new key signature D major changes to G major and the marking Animato. The effect of this is like moving from one number in the Liebeslieder Walzer to the next, where each of the waltzes has a subtly different character and tempo. This reinforces the feeling that Brahms has planned this song as if it were a piece of chamber music with inbuilt repeats.

The eight-bar postlude has the piano-writing descending into the bass clef in a mood of rapt contemplation. Lust zu vergeuden Das edele Blut! Nicht Hohn zu erleiden, Wem fehlt es an Mut? Come, dear weapons, Often donned in sport, Protect now my happiness On this new path! What pleasure To shed noble blood! To protect joy, My treasured possession!

To suffer no scorn, Who lacks courage for that? Slacken your reins, Happy night! Spread your wings, So that over distant hills Dawn shall soon smile on us! In fact, before Peter and Magelone make the decision to run away together, Peter once again appears in the jousting lists and he is again victorious while retaining his anonymity. During the tournament Peter unseats Sir Henry and is a careful and gracious combatant with his own elderly uncle who fails to recognize him.

It is only after this event that the two lovers hatch a plan together to elope. Peter has a lute in his room and it is too big to take with him. In bidding his musical companion farewell he sings what first appears to be a simple and charming serenade. Brahms reverts here to a notion of musical time-travel; there is just a touch of archaic colour to this setting, a courtly pace to the opening music that reminds us that this story is taking place in the time of the troubadours.

With 'Flutenreicher Ebro' Schumann had composed just this kind of character piece with plucked semiquaver accompaniment as a baritone solo in his Spanische Liebeslieder , Op The introduction, in a rich, horn-like tessitura, is a two-bar melody in the right hand with offbeat interjections in the left. Even in the higher key of G flat major, both hands of the accompaniment are in the bass clef. The first bar of the right hand is marked mezzo staccato; the composer certainly intended this articulation, suggesting a plucked lute, to apply to similar passages in the whole song.

The journey back to Provence will clearly not be an easy one. He has set out as a warrior and now he is returning home with his booty. The idea of spoils of war puts Brahms into a military mood and we hear the muffled drum, triplet demisemiquavers that pervade the second page of the song and appear in both hands. By the end of this section we have settled unequivocally into the key of F major. This prepares the way for a change of key signature—to B flat major and a new Allegro marking—also alla breve which determines a very brisk tempo. In musical terms this is a kind of set piece with horn and trumpet effects, a call to arms; even on the page it looks more like a chamber music finale than a song accompaniment.

Murmur on, you melodies, Babble on, quiet brook, Fair fantasies of love Speak in those melodies, Tender dreams float after them. Through the whispering grove Golden bees are swarming And humming you to sleep. This is certainly the most famous song of the set; since its composition it has been extrapolated from the cycle and included in countless recitals, although this happens less often today than in earlier times.

The beginning of the second verse moves into a different mood—Brahms abandons the hypnotic syncopated accompaniment in favour of oscillating quavers with a suggestion of greater urgency. After another appearance of that gentle rocking interlude there is a sudden change of mood and tempo.

The marking is Animato and four flats are replaced by three sharps, a change from A flat major to A major, a shift upwards of a semitone that dispels the dreams that Brahms has woven for Magelone, and for us. When Brahms is in this mood, urgent and expansive at the same time, his credentials are those of a composer of large piano works and imposing chamber music structures although not yet a published symphony. The piano partially doubles the voice and over-enthusiastic performers must be careful not to disrupt the rapt atmosphere painstakingly built up on the previous pages.

The left hand provides continual support of sextuplets rising up in waves from the bottom of the stave, and the vocal line is ingeniously derived from the lullaby, slow music that is now speeded up and made more dramatic. This makes for a truly magical coda. For a short time excitement overrules chivalric gallantry and the music burst into flames; but these have been brought under control. The poem proved itself very popular with composers; the more famous of these settings are by Louise Reichardt , Louis Spohr and Robert Franz Denn nimmer wird es gut.

Mein Blick wird sich nie mehr erheitern, Den Stern meiner Liebe zu sehn. Ich bin ein verlorener Mann. I scoff at the raging gales, Scorn the fury of the flood, If only rocks would dash me to pieces! For I shall never thrive. I shall not complain, though I now founder, And perish in watery depths! So thunder down the mountainside, And rage at me, you storms, So that rock shatters on rock! I am a lost man. It is one of two songs in the sequence of fifteen that has a title that is different from the first line of the poem.

It is true that Peter is not actually in the sea, but he is in a boat and surrounded by water. Scuttling semiquavers, fast enough to suggest foaming waves, are underpinned by jabbing left-hand crotchets off the beat. But the staccato triplets of the first verse return, as if now representing the jagged rocks against which Peter will be mercilessly thrown by the waves. The desperation here is gauged by how much the poor pianist is made to suffer: Even Brahms knows this is devilishly difficult, which is shown by the fact that, most unusually, he provides fingering for every note of two of these bars.

As the pianist reaches for the top of his instrument to initiate a more or less precipitous plunge to the bottom, a marking of Molto sostenuto allows a certain rhetorical expansion, in typically Brahmsian manner. We are borne far away From our beautiful land To a desolate shore, Surrounded by night. This is the second of the three songs in the cycle where the hero Peter steps into the background enabling someone else to contribute to the narrative—in this case Magelone herself. It is interesting that Brahms casts the eponymous heroine in a tonality that suggests he imagines her to be a mezzo-soprano or alto; he was enamoured at various times of his life with singers of this voice range—among them Hermine Spies — and Alice Barbi — The song was later transposed up, but only at the request of the publisher Rieter-Biedermann.

In verse 6 there are a few highly agitated bars of accompaniment denoting the shipwreck of life—throbbing left-hand semiquavers that encompass downward leaps of two octaves. Gibt es denn kein wahres Lieben? Muss denn Schmerz und Trennung sein? Aber so muss ich nun klagen: Wo ist Hoffnung, als das Grab? Fern muss ich mein Elend tragen, Heimlich bricht das Herz mir ab.

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Does true love then not exist? Must there be pain and parting? Had I remained unloved, I should still have a gleam of hope. But this must now be my lament: Where is hope but in the grave? I must bear my grief far away, Secretly my heart is breaking. Fortunately, in the realm of this kind of fairy tale, sex never rears its head, ugly or otherwise.

Tieck specifies the accompanying instrument as a zither and this may account for the accompaniment in semiquavers that sweeps across the stave, always in a downward direction, suggesting resignation and hopelessness. Like Mark Antony in Egypt he has become too accustomed to a new life. The music is both languid and sensual with a magnificent melody. The music for the third verse, organically derived from the first, intensifies as Peter warms to his theme.

The composer repeats the last line of the poem, setting it to new music, in order to bring the song to a close: This is a song where the rueful switches between major and minor may well remind us of Schubert; everything else about its layout, and its spacious eloquence, is pure Brahms.

Then the third and fourth strophes are run together and set to different music with the same kind of accompaniment that aspect of the song never varies. After another twelve-bar interlude the fifth and sixth strophes are set to the same music with repeat marks. After this, the last two strophes are a recapitulation of the music for the third and fourth. This is ingenious cross-weaving, and the twelve-bar postlude is an exact mirror of the introduction.

Performed within the context of the full cycle the music sounds like an illusory dream, an interruption from an unlikely source, an interpolation that has little do with Peter and Magelone and their ongoing saga; but it is the means by which we may once more engage in the story of their relationship. The stars are mirrored in the sea, And the waves gleam with gold.

After this comes a four-bar interlude marked Calmato. This ushers in a modulation dolce to C major. Everything is now surprisingly natural—halcyon music for becalmed, gentle longing. The song has been an astonishingly well-managed combination of bold, open-air music and intimate reflection. It is as if Peter is better balanced than before; perhaps he has grown up at last. Though death and disaster threaten, Encouraging inconstancy As they throng together—Love pits Loyal blood against such perils.

And whatever held the spirit captive Then recedes like mist, And the wide world opens its doors To the cheerful gaze of spring. Happiness Is achieved, Is compelled by love, Vanished Those hours, They fly away; And blissful delight Stills, Fulfils The ecstatic breast that throbs with delight, May it part From sorrow For ever, And never Fade, this lovely, blissful, heavenly delight! Brahms now leaves out two sections of the story, each with a poem he declined to set. This lyric was not set by Brahms. The ship that has brought Peter to this island sails without him and Peter collapses in exhaustion and desperation.

As Peter approaches the hut he sees a young girl sitting at the door, a lamb at her feet, singing a song. This is his long-lost Magelone of course, but once again Brahms chooses not to set this text—possibly on account of its fourteen-strophe length. The pair lived happily ever after. The final song is thus an epilogue sung in front of the curtain, as it were, a summing-up and a farewell. The vocal line is in the manner of a chorale, and once again we are reminded that the whole of this story has taken place at a time when Early Music was Contemporary Music.

This sets up a repeat of the chorale music that has opened the song, although the accompaniment here is a touch more animated. This in turn leads to a repeat of the music for verse 2, which turns a corner into B flat major as a preparation for the closing movement in the home key of E flat. The shape of the poetry suddenly changes here with short, breathless lines. This music has a kind of feverish intensity, a lieder-like Ode to Joy, that brings Beethoven to mind, not for the first time in this cycle.

Word repetitions abound, and we can imagine an entire chorus joining in for this breathless hymn of thanks. The pianist also has his work cut out with galloping quavers, choppy syncopations between the hands, and virtuosic threes-against-fours. The chorale returns, as it must. Here it is marked pianissimo, a great deal to ask after what has gone before. It is surely some of the vocal difficulties in this stamina-challenging song that have inclined singers to defer the challenge of this cycle to another season, or even another lifetime.

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin. Don't show me this message again. He was very skilled in the use of weapons; no one could wield a lance as well as he. Bogen und Pfeil After travelling for many days he arrived at the lordly city of Naples.

He had comforted himself a little. And so they spent the day. Christopher Maltman baritone , Graham Johnson piano. Graham Johnson is both accompanist and curator of this series that presents the entire piano-accompan Elly Ameling soprano , Rudolf Jansen piano. Keinen hat es noch gereut.