FIVE SONGS (LIEDER) FOR LOW VOICE, OP. 94
Recording: Andreas Schmidt, baritone; Helmut Deutsch, piano [CPO 999 447-2]
 Published 1884.

Between the Third and Fourth Symphonies, Brahms published four sets of songs with consecutive opus numbers, 22 in all, a practice of releasing “sets of sets” that had become his standard.  Although they only follow Opp. 84-86 by two years, they are considered his “late Lieder” together with the three groups Opp. 105-107 composed five years later.  The two extended songs for alto with viola and piano, published earlier the same year, can also be considered “late.”  The Four Serious Songs from 1896 stand apart, of course, but those very late masterpieces are anticipated in the first song of these groups.  Like Op. 86 before it and Op. 105 after it, Op. 94 was originally composed and indicated for low voice, perhaps intended for Brahms’s friend the baritone Julius Stockhausen.  Brahms takes this a step further in “Mit vierzig Jahren” by notating the voice part in the bass clef, which he only did again in the last song of Op. 105 and the Four Serious Songs.  The subject matter of Rückert’s text must have spoken profoundly to Brahms, who was well past forty.  He would die at the relatively young age of 63, giving the words a special poignancy.  Already a superb song, it becomes transcendent in the hymn-like conclusion.  The remaining songs also deal with lost youth or lost love, even the sweetly nostalgic fourth song, the famous “Sapphic Ode.”  The second is by the dramatist Friedrich Halm, a pseudonym for Elgius Friedrich Johann von Bellinghausen.  Its somewhat opaque message longing for the “beloved shade” is set with sensitivity and motivic economy.  The third, by Geibel, is exceedingly restless and agitated, with shifting 9/4 and 6/4 meters and a four-part musical structure that does not match the three-stanza poem.  Brahms’s sequential treatment of the repeated lines between stanzas gave rise to the structure.  The “Sapphic Ode” is one of his most famous songs.  The text is by Hans Schmidt, an obscure poet Brahms had set in the first three of the pseudo-duets, Op. 84.  The radiant melody, the static but colorful harmony, and the constant hypnotic right hand chords after the beat lend the song an ineffable sense of timelessness and elegance.  It is without argument one of the greatest love songs ever written.  The “sapphic” verse associated with the ancient Greek female poet Sappho is one of the most enduring lyric forms in Western civilization.  The term “sapphic,” referring only to that form, has created the misunderstanding that the song is explicitly meant to be sung by a woman, but the text itself does not support that idea and indeed only the lowest-voiced female singers can perform it in the original key.  The last song, also by Halm, is an enigma.  It is the shortest of all Brahms songs in terms of performance time, and its austere appearance on the page is striking.  It is indicated as being “from a drama,” but it comes from Halm’s very dark dramatic poem “In der Südsee,” not a play.  The hero is a black sailor and former slave who sacrifices his life for the sake of others.  It has a first verse that Brahms did not use, sung by the hero near the beginning of the poem.  He sings the two-verse version near the end.  Brahms imbues great tragedy into these twenty measures using extreme economy of means.  He composed three further settings of Halm, which are included consecutively in the next set, Op. 95.

Note: Links to English translations of the texts are from Emily Ezust’s site at http://www.lieder.net.  For the most part, the translations are line-by-line, except where the difference between German and English syntax requires slight alterations to the contents of certain lines.  The German texts (included here) are also visible in the translation links.

IMSLP WORK PAGE
ONLINE SCORE FROM IMSLP (First Edition from Brahms-Institut Lübeck--original keys)
ONLINE SCORE FROM IMSLP (From Breitkopf & Härtel Sämtliche Werke--original keys)
ONLINE SCORE FROM IMSLP (Edition Peters, edited by Max Friedländer):
No. 1: Mit vierzig Jahren (in original key, B minor)
No. 1: Mit vierzig Jahren (in high key, D minor)
 No. 2: Steig auf, geliebter Schatten (in original key, E-flat minor)
No. 2: Steig auf, geliebter Schatten (in high key, F minor)
No. 3: Mein Herz ist schwer (in original key, G minor)
 No. 3: Mein Herz ist schwer (in high key, B-flat minor)
No. 4: Sapphische Ode (in original key, D major)
No. 4: Sapphische Ode (in middle key, E major)
No. 4: Sapphische Ode (in high key, F major)
No. 5: Kein Haus, keine Heimat (in original key, D minor)
No. 5: Kein Haus, keine Heimat (in high key, F-sharp minor)

1. Mit vierzig Jahren (At Forty Years).  Text by Friedrich Rückert.  Langsam (Slowly).  Modified strophic form.  B MINOR, 4/4 time (High key D minor).

German Text:
Mit vierzig Jahren ist der Berg erstiegen,
Wir stehen still und schaun zurück;
Dort sehen wir der Kindheit stilles liegen
Und dort der Jugend lautes Glück.

Noch einmal schau’, und dann gekräftigt weiter
Erhebe deinen Wanderstab!
Hindehnt ein Bergesrücken sich ein breiter
Und hier nicht, drüben gehts hinab.

Nicht athmend aufwärts brauchst du mehr zu steigen,
Die Ebene zieht von selbst dich fort;
Dann wird sie sich mit dir unmerklich neigen,
Und eh du’s denkst, bist du im Port.

English Translation

0:00 [m. 1]--Stanza (Strophe) 1.  Lines 1-2.  The short, solemn introduction begins with an upbeat, a “dominant” chord with long-short rhythm.  This leads to two measures of chords emphasizing the second beat.  The singer intones the material that will open all three verses, a downward leap from the “dominant” F-sharp to the keynote B, followed by a procession-like ascent in long-short rhythms, the piano playing chords with bass octaves after each beat.  Line 1 ends with a full arrival on B.  Line 2 is more static, with chromatic harmony and a long-short rhythm in the piano bass.  The singer descends to a held low F-sharp (there is an upper octave option for the last three notes).  The piano echoes the descent without the last note.
0:41 [m. 8]--Lines 3-4.  As the piano makes its delayed arrival, line 3 begins with a downward leap from F-sharp to B, then an upward octave leap (all three stanzas will use this pattern).  The piano holds dolce chords over the strong first and third beats (including bar lines) above a sliding bass.  The voice continues with slower long-short rhythm, moving to the “relative” key of D major.  The last line begins with a leap up to D above a three-note piano upbeat.  The faster long-short rhythm resumes, and the piano now has bass notes on the beats and right-hand chords after them.  The first statement of “Glück” is above a colorful “diminished seventh” chord.
1:02 [m. 12]--Line 4 is repeated on a descending line using the slower long-short rhythm.  The piano bass has a repeated broken octave A, serving as the “dominant” of D major and a “pedal point.”  The right hand has syncopated harmonies just after the first and third beats of the measure.  These harmonies and their resolutions shadow the vocal line.  They continue for a measure after the singer finishes the line.  After the strong emphasis on D, the piano abruptly plays and holds the “dominant” chord in B minor.
1:17 [m. 15]--Stanza (strophe) 2.  Lines 1-2.  The stanza begins exactly like stanza 1, but the piano harmonies after the beats are new, and the voice has a subtle but significant adjustment that creates an arrival point on the “relative” D major instead of B minor.  Line 2, which also resembles the corresponding line of stanza 1, including the long-short rhythm in the piano bass, remains in D major.  The piano echoes the vocal descent as before, but now completes it with a full arrival on D.
1:43 [m. 20]---Lines 3-4.  Line 3 again resembles stanza 1, beginning with the same downward leap from F-sharp to B and upward octave leap, continuing with the slower long-short rhythm.  The piano pattern is new and heavily syncopated, with the right hand playing descending syncopated octaves and harmonies.  A chromatic upward slide in bass octaves leads to a major deviation.  The voice pauses on “breiter,” the first half note of the song.  This leads directly into the fourth line, with “und hier nicht” changing A-sharp to B-flat on another half note to facilitate a motion to the visually distant key of D minor.  The piano has thinned to bare octaves shadowed by bass notes.
2:06 [m. 24]--Line 4 is completed with “drüben gehts hinab.”  The voice descends in D minor, its arpeggio outlining the chord of B-flat.  The piano’s bare octaves double the voice, with the bass notes coming after the beat in a shadow-like manner.  After the voice arrives on a low B-flat, the piano continues its patterns, now with the note C-sharp more strongly suggesting D minor before it too arrives on a low B-flat.  That note is changed back to A-sharp in a direct motion to the “dominant” chord on F-sharp in the home key of B minor.  The piano bass, still playing after the beat, also moves to a low octave F-sharp.  The radical departure from the basic strophe draws attention to the text’s metaphorical descent toward death.
2:22 [m. 27]--Stanza (Strophe) 3.  Lines 1-2.  The opening vocal pattern is the same as the last two stanzas, but the piano now plays chromatic chords on the beat with syncopated bass octaves on F-sharp.  The vocal line is again adjusted to arrive on F-sharp instead of the previous B and D.  Initially, this is F-sharp minor.  The voice rises chromatically to sing line 2, and it moves beyond F-sharp to its own “dominant” harmony of C-sharp.  The long-short rhythm is still heard from the piano bass.  Brahs indicates a small slowing of the speed here.  The arrival note in the voice (here C-sharp) is held longer than the other stanzas, into the next measure.  A piano descent from C-sharp to F-sharp over a rising chromatic bass leads to line 3.
2:52 [m. 32]--Line 3.  It begins again with the downward leap and rising octave on the same notes.  The continuation in the slower long-short rhythm begins a step higher and now directly descends.  The piano’s harmonies and bass are active, with the latter subtly and almost imperceptibly zigzagging down on the appropriate word “unmerkilich” (“unnoticeable”).  The harmonies themselves seem to suggest a change from B minor to B major, but first B is treated like a “dominant” in E major, where the line ends before the piano adds a minor-key inflection and the bass moves to C-sharp, anticipating a motion back to B.
3:10 [m. 35]--Line 4.  With a luxuriant “arrival” on B major, the final line describing the final “arrival” emerges warmly and richly, indulging in long half notes.  The piano has rising arpeggios in triplet rhythm passed from the left hand to the right.  For most of the song, the right hand has been in the middle range and notated in bass clef, but here it reaches higher.  After the voice rises, it briefly speeds up before a descent from B to F-sharp on the last word “Port.”
3:27 [m. 38]--The harmony makes yet another shift, now to C major, the so-called “Neapolitan” in B.  There, a second statement of the final line begins over the triplet arpeggios.  The word “bist” is held over a bar line as E minor emerges in the arpeggios.  These abruptly stop as that harmony leads to a full-measure “dominant” chord on F-sharp, signifying the turn back to B major.  The voice, with mild syncopation, descends through the bottom notes of the B-major scale to its extremely fulfilling cadence.
3:46 [m. 41]--The piano’s triplet arpeggios resume in a postlude.  The second measure is over the harmony of E major, the “subdominant” that was heard before the change to B major at 3:10 [m. 35].  This facilitates a “plagal” cadence with an appropriately reverential character.  The arpeggios stop on a widely spread B-major chord over a low bass octave, the first of three.  Both hands move inward for the second chord, and the left jumps back down to the bass octave for the last one, which is held out with a fermata.  This is one of Brahms’s greatest songs, and its use of the bass clef for the vocal part is a strong statement, one he would follow in Op. 105, No. 5 and of course the Four Serious Songs, Op. 121.
4:13--END OF SONG [44 mm.]

2. Steig auf, geliebter Schatten (Rise, Beloved Shade).  Text by Friedrich Halm.  Gehalten (Restrained).  Ternary form (ABA’).  E-FLAT MINOR, 3/4 time (High key F minor).

German Text:
Steig auf, geliebter Schatten,
Vor mir in toter Nacht,
Und lab mich Todesmatten
Mit deiner Nähe Macht!

Du hast’s gekonnt im Leben,
Du kannst es auch im Tod.
Sich nicht dem Schmerz ergeben,
War immer dein Gebot.

So komm, still meine Tränen,
Gib meiner Seele Schwung,
Und Kraft den welken Sehnen,
Und mach mich wieder jung.

English Translation

0:00 [m. 1]--Stanza 1 (A), lines 1-2.  The piano begins on an upbeat, playing rolled chords in the right hand.  These all have B-flat as the top note but have upward motion underneath.  On the next upbeat, the left hand plays a descending four-note arpeggio outlining a “seventh” chord and including a prominent dotted (long-short) rhythm.  The voice enters on the same upbeat, reaching up and singing a similar descent, outlining a “seventh” chord in inversion.  The right hand continues its rolled chords, now establishing the home key.  After the first line, the left hand has a second four-note descent and the second line has the same shape as before, moving toward the harmony of C-flat major.
0:19 [m. 6]--Line 3.  The left hand has its third downward descent.  For line 3, the voice slowly rises in half notes and quarter notes as the right hand plays chromatic chords (now no longer rolled) and the left hand, playing something other than the descent for the first time, plays syncopated bass notes.  The end of the line turns down, drooping with a suspension to the “dominant” harmony of B-flat.  
0:30 [m. 9]--Line 4.  After a leap down from an upbeat, this line also ascends, but uses the dotted rhythm and is indicated piano whereas the other lines were louder.  The piano left hand has its fourth four-note descent with dotted rhythm, and the key turns toward the “subdominant” A-flat minor as the line ends.  It is immediately repeated, now with the descent outlining a “seventh” chord, the left hand following with a fifth such descent leading to a cadence in the home key.  The word “Nähe” is held out against this descent.  At the same time, the right hand has a new figure on the second and third beats, a rising stepwise harmony.
0:43 [m. 12]--At the cadence, this rising figure, harmonized in thirds, is exploited for an interlude, now on the first two beats.  It is given once, then a half-step lower, and then the whole pattern is raised an octave.  The left hand gradually slides down with syncopated and chromatic motion.  The bass motion leads to a new key center, the “relative” major G-flat, where the contrasting second stanza will begin.
0:58 [m. 16]--Stanza 2 (B), lines 1-2.  The voice gently descends on an arpeggio in warm G-flat major, ending the line with a downward leap.  The piano has new dolce triplet figuration, reaching up on the first beat and down on the second and third.  A shadow of the rising figure from the cadence and interlude can be detected in these triplet figures, and the second measure has a mild chromatic inflection.  The second line, by contrast, slides up chromatically and leaps down, with chromatic harmonies in the piano moving to the unexpected key of D major.  The twofold rising figure in the tenor range leads to the next line.
1:19 [m. 22]--Lines 3-4.  Line 3 is like line 1, with triplets in the piano and gentle motion in the voice, but now the voice incorporates two rising arpeggios instead of a descending one.  It begins with an upbeat and leaps up, abruptly moving to G minor.  The fourth line is like the second, with sliding chromatic motion against colorful harmonies in the piano.  This time, the downward leap arrives on B-flat, functioning as the “dominant” harmony in the home key of E-flat minor.  Further upward chromatic harmonies in the piano, derived from the stepwise rising figure, lead to stanza 3.
1:41 [m. 28]--Stanza 3 (A’), lines 1-2.  The whole stanza is a near-exact reprise of stanza 1, beginning from the vocal upbeat and the first descending “seventh” chord arpeggio in the left hand.  The declamation is changed for the second line to emphasize the word “gib.”  The upbeat is eliminated, and “gib” is placed on the downbeat.  The rhythm of the second beat is then changed from a held-over dotted quarter note and one eighth note to two eighth notes.
1:55 [m. 32]--Line 3.  It is like line 3 in stanza 1, and the piano part is unchanged from there, but the voice does not turn down at the end, instead continuing to rise, now by half-step.  This creates a stronger arrival on B-flat, and when the voice finally descends at the end to A-flat, it makes the “dominant” function more pronounced, pulling more strongly toward the harmony of E-flat minor.
2:07 [m. 35]--Line 4.  The line, its repetition, and the piano part are all unchanged musically from stanza 1.
2:20 [m. 38]--The postlude at the cadence begins like the interlude at 0:43 [m. 12], but after the first two rising gestures, the bass remains anchored on E-flat and even drops to a low E-flat octave.  The syncopation in the piano bass (with the E-flat held over bar lines) is retained from the interlude.  Instead of the two rising gestures being moved up an octave as the bass changes the key, there is only one more rising gesture, played a third lower than the second one and pointing to the final cadence.  Two fading, low, and desolate E-flat-minor chords end the song, the first played between the syncopated bass octaves and the second, which is rolled, incorporating the bass.
2:51--END OF SONG [42 mm.]

3. Mein Herz ist schwer (My Heart Is Heavy).  Text by Emanuel Geibel.  Unruhig bewegt, doch nicht schnell (With agitated motion, but not fast).  Expanded ternary form (ABB’A’).  G MINOR, 9/4 and 6/4 time (High key B-flat minor).

German Text:
Mein Herz ist schwer, mein Auge wacht,
Der Wind fährt seufzend durch die Nacht;
Die Wipfel rauschen weit und breit,
Sie rauschen von vergangner Zeit.

Sie rauschen von vergangner Zeit,
Von großen Glück und Herzeleid,
Vom Schloß und von der Jungfrau drin -
Wo ist das alles, alles hin?

Wo ist das alles, alles hin,
Leid, Lieb’ und Lust und Jugendsinn?
Der Wind fährt seufzend durch die Nacht,
Mein Herz ist schwer, mein Auge wacht.

English Translation

The last line of stanza 1 is the first line of stanza 2, and the last line of stanza 2 is the first line of stanza 3.  The last two lines of stanza 3 reverse the first two of stanza 1.  The four musical sections do not match the breaks in the three stanzas.
A Section
0:00 [m. 1]--Introduction.  In 9/4 meter, the piano’s hands play in restless contrary motion, moving inward and then outward, with the left hand on the beat followed by the right hand off the beat.  Though pianissimo, the sense of agitation arises from the rustling, murmuring effect.  Both hands are notated mostly in octaves, but Brahms indicates small notes for most of the octave doublings, and the omission of these smaller notes can make the rustling effect easier to achieve.  The outward and inward arpeggios serve to establish the G-minor key, and after the third measure, they halt on the “dominant seventh” harmony with three syncopated chords, a pattern that will return.  The piano then comes to a pause.
0:13 [m. 5]--Stanza 1, lines 1-2.  The voice enters on an upbeat, and the two lines are presented against the piano’s resumption of its inward and outward arpeggios.  The first line is stretched over two measures, with long notes on the downbeats and a pause between the two clauses.  The line gradually rises.  The second line is more compressed, fitting the entire text into a single measure and the following downbeat, but still using the longer notes on the first and second strong beats of the 9/4 measure.  It descends to the downbeat, further establishing the swaying long-short motion that dominates the vocal line throughout the song.  On the downbeat, the meter changes to 6/4.  The piano undulates, moving strongly to the “dominant” harmony.
0:27 [m. 10]--Stanza 1, line 3.  This line is transitional.  The singer begins on an upbeat, but then rises slowly on long-held repeated notes before descending on an A-major arpeggio.  Against this, the piano plays the pattern of three syncopated “dominant seventh” chords beginning off the downbeat, first on G (suggesting C major or minor), then on E (suggesting A major or minor), and finally on A (suggesting D major).  The chords on A are repeated after the voice finishes the line, but quickly move to D-major harmony as the next line and section begin.
B Section
0:37 [m. 14]--Stanza 1, line 4 and stanza 2, line 1.  These lines are identical, and they are sung in a rising sequential pattern in swaying motion with long notes on strong beats.  Brahms indicates that the speed and volume gradually increase (“nach und nach lebhafter”).  The piano goes back to the patterns with the left hand on the beats and the right hand following off the beats, but now, the left hand remains anchored to its bass note with upper harmony, moving only after the first statement of the text.  The right hand follows with harmonies that are also static.  Under the first statement, the bass is on D.  After a one-measure break with upper notes in syncopated hemiola (implied 3/2), the bass moves up to E-flat for the second statement.
0:48 [m. 19]--Stanza 2, lines 2-3.  There is no break after the second statement of the repeated text as there was after the first.  The piano’s bass moves to A-flat here, and the vocal line is slightly changed from the preceding repeated text, with two more direct downward patterns, still with the long notes on strong beats.  There is another implied 3/2 hemiola in the tenor voice of the piano.  Halfway through the second measure as stanza 2, line 2 concludes, the piano bass slides up a half-step to A.  Stanza 2, line 3 has a stronger upward motion, with less “swaying” effect in the vocal line.  The harmony moves strongly to A major.
B’ Section
0:57 [m. 23]--Stanza 2, line 4 and stanza 3, line 1.  Brahms marks that the speed should still be increasing (“immer lebhafter” or sempre più animato).  These identical lines are set like the previous ones, but now the sequential pattern descends between them.  Under the first statement of the text, the piano’s bass descends and rises by half-step before leaping to E-flat (the harmony suggesting A-flat major).  There is a strong crescendo in the one-measure break before the repetition.  At the repetition, the home key of G minor is again established, and the piano suddenly has a new pattern with descending arpeggios in the left hand and off-beat figures with “leaning” motion in the right hand.
1:08 [m. 28]--Stanza 3, line 2.  With strong syncopation on the upbeat held into the downbeat, the singer presents this line as the climax of the song, descending and then rising as the piano’s right hand moves to undulating arpeggios.  The bass rises from E-natural to F, G, A, and B-flat before dropping back down to F.  The voice breaks off, and the piano has another one-measure bridge.  Here, the only unambiguous forte indicates the moment of climax.  The bass has rising arpeggios as the piano imitates the voice’s last descent, the harmony now emphasizing B-flat, the “relative” major.  The words “und Jugendsinn” are then repeated on a descent that begins to diminish and recede.
1:18 [m. 32]--As the voice concludes, the piano emerges into the three syncopated chords, now not on “dominant seventh” harmony, but on a B-flat chord with F in the bass.  These syncopated chords are then given with the bass moving up to F-sharp, creating a colorful “augmented” harmony that will be used to pivot back to G minor.  The volume has already receded back to pianissimo.  The piano breaks off, and there is a nearly full measure pause before the voice enters on an upbeat in the return to the opening music.
A' Section
1:25 [m. 35]--Stanza 3, lines 3-4.  The meter returns to 9/4, “Tempo primo” and sotto voce.  These lines are a reversal of the first two, and Brahms sets them like those, but there is now a rising bridge between the two clauses of line 3 instead of a pause, and again leading into line 4.  That line is set like stanza 1, line 2, but the piano patterns now have three inward motions on each strong beat instead of continuous inward and outward motion.  The notes themselves are adjusted at the end so that the voice can end on the home keynote G instead of the “dominant” D.  There is, however, a striking “Phrygian” inflection a half-step above it (A-flat).  A bridging measure moves inward, diminishes, and slows, shifting from minor to major.
1:39 [m. 39]--The last line is repeated, beginning at the end of the bridging measure.  G major is fully established, but the “Phrygian” A-flat is again heard under the voice’s upbeat on “mein.”  The meter again changes to 6/4 after this upbeat, and the line is stretched out with pauses.  The same notes are used for “ist schwer” that were used for “mein Herz,” a descending half-step.  The “Phrygian” A-flat is heard in the piano, which descends, then slows.  The line is completed with long, syncopated A-flats on “Auge” over the three syncopated chords, now a “half-diminished seventh” over the bass “dominant” note D.  The voice descends a half-step to G before the piano plays two last low G-major chords, the second rolled and held.
2:06--END OF SONG [43 mm.]

4. Sapphische Ode (Sapphic Ode).  Text by Hans Schmidt.  Ziemlich langsam (Rather slowly).  Slightly varied strophic form.  D MAJOR, Cut time [2/2] with four measures of 3/2 (High key F major, middle key E major).

German Text:
Rosen brach ich nachts mir am dunklen Hage;
Süßer hauchten Duft sie als je am Tage;
Doch verstreuten reich die bewegten Äste
Tau, der mich näßte.

Auch der Küsse Duft mich wie nie berückte,
Die ich nachts vom Strauch deiner Lippen pflückte:
Doch auch dir, bewegt im Gemüt gleich jenen,
Tauten die Tränen.

English Translation

0:00 [m. 1]--Stanza 1, line 1.  The piano’s right hand sets up its mezza voce mid-range after-beat pulsations, which will remain constant through the end of the song.  The right hand will not play on the beat until the last bar.  These first pulses are root-position D-major chords.  The bass enters halfway through the measure.  The voice begins in the second measure.  The first three lines in a “sapphic” stanza have five feet, all two-syllable “trochees” except the middle three-syllable “dactyl.”  Brahms follows this pattern rhythmically.  The vocal line arches down and leaps up, staying close to the outline of the D-major chord.  The last two-syllable foot on “Hage” is stretched out to a full measure, the piano shifting briefly to create a cadence.
0:17 [m. 5]--Line 2.  It begins with a descending scale pattern, then moves to gently bouncing rhythms that were heard in line 1.  These strongly emphasize “leading tone” motion into D.  After the first descent, the piano’s pulsations become detached, with Brahms indicating rests between them.  The harmonies are mildly chromatic, with a more active left hand that still maintains a bass “pedal point” D, and the lengthened word “Tage” emphasizes the “subdominant” G-major harmony.  Instead of an upward leap on the lengthened word, as was heard in line 1, there is now a resolving descent.
0:29 [m. 8]--Line 3.  The vocal entry is delayed to the second half of the bar after the piano’s tenor voice anticipates its scale descent, pianissimo.  Brahms rectifies the displacement by introducing a 3/2 measure.  Here, the vocal descent touches on D minor.  The piano’s right-hand pulses are still detached, and the left hand, while active, retains the D “pedal point.”  Harmonies on G minor and a “dominant seventh” on E are prominent.  The line ends on a strong half-close, its orientation normalized after the inserted 3/2 bar.  Only here does the piano bass finally move away from the D “pedal point,” descending in half-note octaves.
0:44 [m. 11]--Line 4.  The fourth line of the “sapphic” stanza has one dactyl followed by a two-syllable pulse, both of which are lengthened by Brahms.  On the downbeat of another inserted 3/2 measure, the word “Tau” is sung on a long-held note (F-sharp) before a downward leap on the last beat.  The bass descends in half notes, and the piano pulsations include “dominant seventh” chords that point briefly to the “subdominant” G and the “dominant” A, including a suspended F-sharp.  The following measure, back in the main 2/2 meter, is a richly extended cadence on “näßte,” with a delicate turning ornament in the voice.
0:57 [m. 13]--At the vocal cadence, a four-bar interlude begins, retaining the right hand’s after-beat pulses.  There is a gradual motion up and back down, with striking internal half-step descents in the chords.  These descents resolve strong dissonances against the bass.  The harmony ends on a “dominant” chord in preparation for stanza 2.
1:16 [m. 17]--Stanza 2, line 1.  Other than the preparation with an interlude instead of a single measure, its presentation is identical to the opening line of stanza 1.
1:27 [m. 20]--Line 2.  It begins like the line in stanza 1, but there is a colorful change on “Lippen,” where the music presses higher than before and has a “leading tone” motion into F-sharp after the first one on D.  The piano is slightly altered to accommodate this, but the basic harmonies and the “pedal point” are not affected.  The resolving descent on “pflückte” is set a third higher than “Tage” in stanza 1.
1:39 [m. 23]--Line 3.  It is again delayed by the pianissimo anticipation in the piano’s tenor voice, and the 3/2 measure is inserted as expected.  The change is at the very end of the line, when “Gemüt” turns down where there had previously been an upward turn.  This leads to lower notes on the last word “jenen” after the 3/2 measure, but the descent to a low A creates an even stronger half-close.  The piano’s harmonies are also shifted down to accommodate this change before the bass moves away from the “pedal point.”
1:53 [m. 26]--Line 4.  In the inserted 3/2 measure, the vocal line on “tauten” (“dewing,” the verb form of the word “Tau” heard at this point in stanza 1) slides up by half-step from D to D-sharp before landing on the F-sharp.  In addition to adding variety, this change helps shift back from the low A to the original register, both in the piano and the voice.  The upward motion takes up the same space as had the long-held F-sharp before.  The extended cadence on “Tränen” with the delicate turning ornament is as in stanza 1.
2:07 [m. 28]--The postlude initially resembles the interlude between stanzas, at least in its harmonies and the first internal half-step descent resolving a dissonance, but it moves down instead of up.  The second measure moves toward an unusual “plagal” cadence from the minor “subdominant” chord, but the insertion of C-sharp gives this cadence the flavor of a regular “authentic” cadence.  The bass and the upper voice, however, move from G, not the “dominant” A.  The low bass octave D in the last measure is followed on the second beat by a held pianissimo D-major chord with F-sharp on top (approached by half-step from G).  This is the only time the right hand has played on an actual beat instead of after every beat.
2:31--END OF SONG [30 mm.]

5. Kein Haus, keine Heimat (No House, No Homeland).  Text by Friedrich Halm, “from a drama.”  Tempo giusto.  Slightly varied strophic form.  D MINOR, 3/4 time (High key F-sharp minor).

German Text:
Kein Haus, keine Heimat,
Kein Weib und kein Kind,
So wirbl’ ich, ein Strohhalm,
In Wetter und Wind!

Well’ auf und Well’ nieder,
Bald dort und bald hier;
Welt, fragst du nach mir nicht,
Was frag’ ich nach dir?

English Translation (includes stanza 1, not set by Brahms)

0:00 [m. 1]--Stanza 1, lines 1-2.  The simplicity of this, Brahms’s briefest song, is deceptive.  The piano part consists entirely of staccato interjections with the left hand on the beat followed by the right hand off the beat.  Two of these are heard at the outset, on the first two downbeats on the keynote D, spread over three octaves.  The tempo must be very strict, as implied by the direction “giusto.”  The voice enters on an upbeat, rising a third on the first line and a fifth on the second, both times landing back on D.  Under each line, the piano has a punctuating sequence of bass octaves and chords, with anguished “augmented” triads instead of a “dominant” that might be expected.  The voice’s descent back to D is over a D-minor chord.
0:10 [m. 7]--Lines 3-4.  The voice begins again on an upbeat, now leaping down and up with descending fifths and an ascending fourth.  Including the upbeat, the piano plays on the last beat of three straight measures, following the vocal line with bass octaves and harmonies of F major, D minor, and G minor.  The upbeat to the last line in the voice coincides with the last of these.  It turns on E and F before landing on the final D.  Underneath it, the piano’s rhythmic patterns change, with an A-major chord on the second beat, then an octave D on the downbeat coinciding with the voice’s final D.  The piano interjections thus move from the upbeat to the second beat and then the downbeat, creating a profound sense of uneasiness.
0:15 [m. 11]--Stanza 2, lines 1-2.  The last measure of stanza 1, with its octave D in the piano, doubles as the first introductory measure to stanza 2, the elision contributing to the overall sense of terse economy.  The second one follows.  The setting of these two lines is then presented as it was in stanza 1.
0:21 [m. 16]--Lines 3-4.  Line 3 is as in stanza 1, but the third upbeat chord under the first note of line 4 is on B-flat major instead of G minor.  The vocal upbeat of line 4 is shifted from E to F, and the line turns on F and G before rising to the final A with a brief and powerful crescendo.  The chord on the second beat is G minor instead of A major, creating a “plagal” cadence instead of the regular “authentic” cadence heard in stanza 1.  There is now a full chord on the downbeat, surprisingly and abruptly D major instead of minor.  It is given in a higher register on the third beat as the voice holds out its A.  The ringing forte D-major chord on the second beat of the last bar, after the voice cuts off, is the only held sonority in the entire piano part.
0:35--END OF SONG [20 mm.]
END OF SET


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