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Liebeslieder
OPUS 52 (SONGS OF LOVE)
TRANSLATED FROM VARIOUS LANGUAGES BY GEORG FRIEDRICH DAUMER (1800â1875)
Liebeslieder. Walzer fßr das Pianoforte zu vier Händen (und Gesang ad libitum) componirt von Johannes Brahms (Songs of love. Waltzes for piano, four hands, [and optional voices] composed by Johannes Brahms), Op. 52. Published in October 1869 by N. Simrock in Berlin; publication number 364; German only. A version for piano duet without voices, Op. 52a, appeared in December 1874 (publication number 7523), and one for voices with piano solo in April/May 1875 (publication number 7522). At the request of the conductor Ernst Rudorff, Brahms arranged a suite of Liebeslieder for SATB soli or chorus with small orchestra during the winter of 1869/70, which was first published only in 1938 by C. F. Peters in Leipzig; publication numbers 11392 (score) and 11397 (parts); it comprised Op. 52/1, 2, 4, 6, 5; a new number to be published later as Op. 65/9; and Op. 52/11, 8, 9.
The work may have been conceived as early as July 1868 but was completed in August 1869 in Lichtental near Baden-Baden. Clara Schumann wrote in her diary on 16 July 1869:
At the beginning of this month Johannes brought me some charming waltzes for four hands and four voices, sometimes two and two, sometimes all four together, with very pretty words, chiefly of the folk-song type.... They are extraordinarily attractive (charming even without the voices) and I very much enjoy playing them.
And on 24 August:
I went to Karlsruhe to hear Johannesâs waltzes with the vocal parts sung by Fräulein Murjohn, the Hausers, and Herr Stolzenberg. It was a very great treat. They are delightfully dainty and charming, of really remarkable musical form and melody.
The first public performance of the complete work took place on 5 January 1870 in the Kleiner Redoutensaal in Vienna. The singers were Luise Dustmann, Rosa Girzick, Gustav Walter, and Emil Krauss; the pianists, Clara Schumann and Brahms. Partial performances, private hearings, and open rehearsals had occurred during the preceding several months in Vienna and Karlsruhe. The version without voices, Op. 52a, was first performed on 14 November 1874 in Vienna by Brahms and Otto Dessoff. The suite for voices and orchestra had its first performance in Berlin on 19 March 1870, with Anna von Asten, Amalie Joachim, Herr Borchardt, Herr Putsch, and the orchestra of the Berlin Hochschule, Ernst Rudorff conducting.
The texts are from Poly dora, ein weltpoetisches Liederbuch (Frankfurt am Main, 1855).
Both the title and the performance medium of the work had a precedent in Robert Schumannâs Spanische Liebeslieder, Op. 138, composed in 1849 and published in 1857.
Through the work of Joseph Lanner and the two Johann Strausses, the Viennese waltz had become a large-scale orchestral composition intended for public performance, consisting of several dances with an introduction and a coda, and transitional material where necessary. Brahmsâs model, however, was rather the smaller German dances and Ländler of Schubert, written for piano and for more intimate performance, and comprising series of brief separate dances without additional material. Brahms was a great admirer of Schubertâs music and an enthusiastic collector of Schubert manuscripts. In fact, a collection of twenty Ländler that Brahms had selected from his store of unpublished Schubert autographs, arranged as a coherent whole and edited anonymously, appeared in print in May 1869, about the time he was leaving for the summer in Lichtental.
Although the composition of the various waltzes of the Liebeslieder seems to have gone quickly, their ordering and format (and even their title) proved troublesome. When Brahms sent them to Simrock for publication, he wrote (28 August 1869):
I am a little uncertain about the title and the division into parts (Heftordnung). You can eliminate âLiebeslieder.â Do you prefer âWaltzesâ for Piano Duet and in parentheses (with voices) or (voices ad lib.)? ...
I should think two booklets with nine each?
It also works well in one volume? Or do you want to make three booklets of six each? In that case, I would ask that numbers 7â12 be arranged as follows: 10, 11, 12, 7, 8, 9. (Briefwechsel, IX, 76; my translation)
Still undecided, he suggested to Hermann Levi shortly before the performance that Levi was preparing for 6 October in Karlsruhe that he perform the waltzes in two parts, the first comprising nos. 1â6 and 10â12; the second, nos. 7â9 and 13â18. (Only ten of the eighteen were actually performed in Karlsruhe.) There were other changes right up to publication and beyondâin his own copy of the first edition Brahms indicated that no. 3, âO die Frauen,â should be in A major rather than Bâ major, undeniably making a smoother progression of keys. It seems clear that Brahmsâs goal was the creation of large subgroupings within a coherent whole.
In the work as published, nos. 1â6 constitute the first group. The keys flow logically because of their relatedness to A as a center, and the larger-scale no. 6 functions as a conclusion, its interior section in F major even clarifying the kinship of no. 4 in the same key.
The second group comprises nos. 7â9, whose keys descend by thirds to the E major in which the work began. The initial Aâ of no. 7, which is the tonic of no. 8, is enharmonically the related GâŻ; there is an important movement into A major in the second half of no. 7 and an analogous movement into E major in no. 8. Brahms obviously considered no. 9 an ending piece since he not only positioned it to conclude the first half of the work but also chose it to end the orchestrated suite and the second group of six if the work were divided into thirds.
Nos. 10â12 lead harmonically one to the next and share the rhythmic motive of a dot...
