Brahms: 5 Duets, Op. 66 (with Score)

Johannes Brahms: 5 Duets, for soprano, alto and piano, Op. 66 (with Score) Composed: 1873–75 Soprano: Letizia Scherrer Alto: Franziska Gottwald Piano: Ferenc Bognár 00:00 1. Klänge. Andante (G minor) 01:49 2. Klänge. Andante (B minor) 04:23 3. Am Strande. Ruhig (E-flat major) 07:13 4. Jägerlied. Lebhaft (C major) 08:41 5. Hüt du dich! Lebhaft, heimlich und schalkhaft (B-flat major) Brahms composed the Duets, Op. 66, during the summer of 1875 while in Ziegelhausen, near Heidelberg. By all accounts Brahms' mood was excellent at this time, and he entertained numerous visitors, including the painter Anselm Feuerbach. The Duets, Op. 66, were published in 1875 and first performed on January 29, 1878 in Vienna. Although he set many poems by Goethe and two by Schiller, Brahms showed a predilection for the work of second-rate poets. Brahms tended to choose texts for their musical potential; however, periods of increased song output in his life seem to coincide with the presence of a woman. For instance, the fifteen songs Brahms composed in 1858 revolve around his relationship with Agathe von Siebold, a singer in Göttingen for whom he composed the Lieder, Opp. 14 and 19 and the Duets, Opp. 20 and 28. Twenty-one of Brahms' 196 solo songs are from 1877, the year Brahms was "re-acquainted" with Elisabeth von Herzogenberg (née Stockhausen). Brahms once wrote to Clara Schumann that the folk song is the ideal toward which the composer of songs must strive. In the Duets, Op. 66, folk song aspects are clearly evident in the diatonic melodies, repetition of the last words of a verse, consistent rhythmic patterns and the lack of lengthy piano introductions. "Klänge" I (Sounds), by Klaus Groth (1819-99), draws parallels between love and nature: just as light emanates from the sun, so does love from the heart; however, just as night follows day, yearning follows love. Soprano and alto sing nearly homorhythmically through the first verse, in G minor. In the second verse, the soprano enters first and remains a beat ahead of the alto, whose line is an inverted imitation of the soprano's. Brahms extends the second and final verse of his varied strophic setting by repeating the last line before closing on G major. "Klänge" II, also by Groth, compares death of the body and of love. Bells ring to send a body to its rest, while songs do the same for love. Although flowers cover the wound in the earth caused by the grave they can do nothing for dead love, for its grave is already closed. In three-part form and in B minor, "Klänge" mixes major and minor throughout before the truncated return of the opening section closes on B major. In "Am Strande" (On the Beach), by Hermann Hölty, the sound of the ocean rocks the soul of then narrator to sleep and speaks to him in friendly voices of days past. The central section of this ABA' song sinks deeply into the "flat" key areas, and the final, pseudo-plagal cadence on E flat is anything but firm. Brahms' setting of "Jägerlied" (Hunter's Song), by Karl Candidus, is the only duet of Op. 66 to juxtapose two characters. An onlooker, the soprano, questions a hunter, whose retorts reveal sensitivity and guilt in her heart. The setting is varied strophic, although the hunter has two distinctly different melodies. Brahms shifts from the C major of the onlooker's questions to C minor for the hunter's anguished answers. "Hüt du dich!" (Look after Yourself) from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, (The Youth's Magic Horn), a two-volume anthology of German folk poetry edited by Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano and published between 1805 and 1808. The poem is a warning to a young man concerning a young lady. She could make a fool of him, so he must be careful, especially when she deliberately lays her two little white breasts in front of him. Only the accompaniment changes significantly in Brahms' playful, varied strophic setting. All Music Guide (https://www.allmusic.com/composition/...)