Classical Music | Baritone

Recorded on 04/06/2005, uploaded on 03/21/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Alte Liebe from Fünf Gesänge, op. 72      Johannes Brahms

The Fünf Gesänge, op. 72 is the last of four sets of songs that Johannes Brahms composed during 1875-7. By this time, Brahms's had attained a masterly skill of both form and expression in his Lieder. The voice was increasingly woven into the overall musical texture. Furthermore, like his late piano pieces, the composition techniques used became more and more subtle.

Many of the poems used by Brahms, such as those of Karl Candidus in op. 72, were by relatively minor poets of the period. Alone, many of these texts are far from regarded as outstanding specimens of Romantic German poetry. However, Brahms's own artistic skill was more than capable of making up for the deficiencies of his chosen texts. In many cases, Brahms's settings create the emotions that the poet could not impart on his own or fully realize.

The first song of op. 72, Alte Liebe by Candidus, speaks of the memories of young love-a situation Brahms certainly could identify with. It begins in A minor with the voice accompanied by gentle arpeggios in the piano. The song becomes more impassioned as it moves through the key of F major. A pianissimo F minor chord followed by a chromatic passage in A minor, gives way to a chilling modulation into the remote key of F sharp minor. This sets the stage for the song's climatic point. The first bars of the opening return to begin the final stanza and the songs comes to a resigned close over a tonic pedal and falling fifths in the piano.

The dark swallow returns

from a distant land,

the pious storks return

and bring new happiness.

On this spring morning,

so sadly veiled and warm,

I seem to rediscover

love's sorrow of old.

If is as if, gently,

my shoulder were tapped,

as though I heard a whispering

as of a dove in flight.

My door is knocked,

yet no one is outside;

scents of jasmine I breathe,

yet have no bouquet.

I am summoned from afar,

an eye is watching me,

I am seized by an old dream

and led along the way.

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.