FIVE SONGS
        (LIEDER), OP. 107
        Recording: Juliane Banse, soprano (Nos. 3, 5); Andreas Schmidt,
        baritone (Nos. 1-2, 4); Helmut Deutsch, piano [CPO 999 840-2]
       Published 1889.
          
        
     The
        songs in this very last “regular” set are distinguished by their
        extreme brevity.  None of the five is longer than two
        minutes, and only the first and last (barely) exceed ninety
        seconds.  Even though none of the poems are to folk texts,
        they have the character and mood sometimes seen in Brahms’s
        folk-like settings.  In contrast to Op. 105 and Op. 106, there
        is no “capstone” song like “Verrat” or “Ein Wanderer” from those
        groups.  All five show an exquisite adaptation of strophic
        form.  None of them is a purely simple strophic setting,
        although Nos. 1 and 3 come close, with only minimal adaptations
        to the accompaniments at the beginning of their second
        verses.  It seems as if Brahms wanted to say farewell to
        that most “miniature” of musical forms, the art song, with the
        most miniature--though masterfully crafted--examples.  The
        first, to a text by the baroque poet Fleming, exemplifies the
        artfulness with the independence and interdependence of the
        voice and piano parts.  Brahms’s friend Elisabet von
        Herzogenberg, from whom he asked for commentary on his later
        songs, observed that the genial setting seemed to conflict with
        the description of the “proud woman,” but the narrator is in
        fact still attempting to win her over.  The contrast
        between the voice and piano could represent the distance between
        the characters.  “Salamander” is an overt attempt at
        musical humor, but Elisabet (who disliked Lemcke intensely) was
        scandalized by the text with its “cool devil.”  The third
        song, which imitates birdsong in both the voice and piano,
        exudes pure happiness as a new bride converses with a female
        swallow about love and marriage.  The abrupt harmonic
        shifts and the poignant slowing in each verse are still too warm
        and amiable to suggest real concern, despite the protagonist’s
        questions.  “Mainkätzchen,” set to a very diminutive poem
        with two nearly identical stanzas, nonetheless has a greatly
        varied and extended setting of the second stanza to highlight
        the remembered time when the narrator decorated not his own hat,
        but that of his erstwhile beloved, with the catkins of the
        title.  The text could have invited melancholy, but it is
        instead sweetly nostalgic.  The set closes with the last of
        three songs titled
        “Mädchenlied” (two of which are by Heyse).  In contrast to
        the rest of the set, this “spinning” song is despairing and
        almost bitter in its depiction of the lonely girl.  The
        extended, coda-like final verse displays some consolation in its
        use of major-key harmonies, but the passionate climactic outcry
        and threefold repetition of the last line are profoundly sad.
        
      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 key edition and
        lower key edition.  Lower keys of Nos. 2-3 match
          Peters middle-key edition.)
      ONLINE SCORE FROM IMSLP (From
            Breitkopf & Härtel Sämtliche Werke--original
              keys) 
        ONLINE SCORE FROM IMSLP (Edition Peters, edited by Max
        Friedländer):
        No. 1: An die Stolze (in original
        key, A major)
        No. 1: An die Stolze (in low key, F major)
           No. 2: Salamander (in original key,
        A minor/major)
        No. 2: Salamander (in middle key,
        F-sharp minor/major)
        No.
          2: Salamander (in low key, F minor/major)
         No. 3: Das Mädchen spricht (in
            original key, A major)
               No. 3: Das Mädchen spricht (in
          middle key, F-sharp major)
          No.
            3: Das Mädchen spricht (in low key, F major)
         No. 4: Maienkätzchen (in original
          key, E-flat major)
          No. 4: Maienkätzchen 
              (in low key, C major)
              No.
                5: Mädchenied (in original key, B minor)
             No. 5: Mädchenlied (in
                middle key, A minor)
        No. 5: Mädchenlied (in low key, G minor)
         
    
      1. An die Stolze (To the Proud Woman).  Text
      by Paul Fleming.  Sehr lebhaft und ausdrucksvoll (Very lively
      and expressively).  Strophic form.  A MAJOR, Cut time
      [2/2] (Low key F major).
      
      German Text:
      Und gleichwohl kann ich anders nicht,
      Ich muß ihr günstig sein,
      Obgleich der Augen stolzes Licht
      Mir mißgönnt seinen Schein.
      Ich will, ich soll, ich soll, ich muß dich lieben,
      Dadurch wir beid’ uns nur betrüben,
      Weil mein Wunsch doch nicht gilt
      Und du nicht hören wilt.
      
      Wie manchen Tag, wie manche Nacht,
      Wie manche liebe Zeit
      Hab’ ich mit Klagen durchgebracht,
      Und du verlachst mein Leid!
      Du weißt, du hörst, du hörst, du siehst die Schmerzen,
      Und nimmst der’ keinen doch zu Herzen,
      So daß ich zweifle fast,
      Ob du ein Herze hast.
      
      [Here two stanzas not set by Brahms]
      
      English Translation (includes stanzas
      3 and 4, not set by Brahms)
      
        0:00 [m. 1]--Stanza (Strophe) 1, lines 1-2.  The
        piano plays a low bass downbeat, and the voice immediately
        enters.  The vocal and piano lines are independent of each
        other.  The singer presents the first line with a
        descending melody that is rich in mildly dissonant notes
        resolving downward.  It reaches up again once before
        completing the line.  The piano, meanwhile, has a flowing
        mid-range melody that arches up and then descends in long-short
        rhythm.  This pattern is retained for the second line,
        where both the voice and piano reach higher and veer toward
        C-sharp minor, with three notes on the first syllable of
        “günstig.”  The voice breaks while the piano quickly moves
        back home, its right hand reaching higher.
        0:10 [m. 7]--Stanza 1, lines 3-4.  The same pattern
        appears to begin again, but the piano, which begins more
        quietly, adds bell-like chords in the right hand, leaving the
        flowing melody to the left and dispensing with some bass
        notes.  Inner notes of these chords double the vocal
        line.  The voice adds a new upward leap at the end of line
        3.  Line 4 appears to match line 2, but with the continuing
        bell-like chords in the right hand.  At the end, however,
        it reaches even higher and moves to the “dominant” E major
        instead of its “relative” C-sharp minor.  The piano only
        has three chords echoing the voice, no bridge as it did after
        line 2.
        0:17 [m. 12]--Stanza 1, line 5.  The piano, quiet
        again but building, continues the bell like chords, now against
        higher downward-arching figures in the left hand.  The
        voice tentatively breathes out the first words of line 5, “Ich
        will, ich soll.”  The harmonies, with a prominent F-natural
        in a “diminished” chord, hint at either A minor or C
        major.  After a pause, the voice continues with “ich soll,
        ich muß,” holding the last word on the persistent F-natural
        against dissonant chords and long-short left-hand skips and
        leaps.  The voice then leaps down an octave to complete the
        line, holding a low F-natural on “lieben.”  Against this
        climax, the piano has a broad upward arpeggio on a colorful
        “diminished seventh” chord resolving to the “dominant” in A. 
        0:26 [m. 18]--Stanza 1, line 6.  The voice and piano
        have been largely independent to this point, symbolizing the
        distance between the “proud woman” and her insistent
        suitor.  Now, solidly in the home key, they come together
        somewhat in a sequence of exchanges with piano chords echoing
        brief vocal interjections on “dadurch,” wir Beid,” and “uns
        nur,” the first two jumping up, the last one down.  The
        piano emerges into a brief arpeggio as the line is completed on
        “betrüben.”
        0:32 [m. 22]--Stanza 1, lines 7-8.  The singer, in
        the role of the suitor, becomes more insistent and bitter in
        these brief closing lines.  The vocal line arches up and
        down on line 7 as the piano introduces a new pattern with left
        hand harmonies on the beats and the right hand echoing them
        after the beat.  Leading into line 8, these harmonies
        become mildly dissonant three-note chords.  Line 8 is
        presented in a similar arch, reaching full harmonic closure, but
        the piano continues, again with dissonant chords, and the last
        line is repeated with an upward leap and a descent in longer
        notes, the piano chords continuing and building in volume.
        0:41 [m. 28]--The voice reaches an emphatic cadence with
        the repeated, lengthened final line.  In the short
        postlude, the piano continues with the right-hand chords after
        the beat, but these move down to the middle range.  Instead
        of chords, the left hand has a broadly arching arpeggio in low
        bass notes.  Both hands are in meter-obscuring three-beat
        groups.  Both then slow down and become quiet, still
        obscuring the meter in a longer six-beat group.  They come
        together on the last chord.
        0:46 [m. 31]--Stanza (strophe) 2, lines 1-2.  The
        vocal line is unchanged from stanza 1, but the piano melody is
        an octave higher.  The few bass notes are still mostly in
        their original low octave.  The voice now has three notes
        on the first syllable of “liebe.”  With the arpeggio
        leading into the short bridge, the piano is fully restored to
        its original register, and the rest of the stanza is identical
        to the first.
        0:55 [m. 37]--Stanza 2, lines 3-4, set as at 0:10 [m. 7].
        1:02 [m. 42]--Stanza 2, line 5, set as at 0:17 [m.
        12].  The short interjections on “Du weißt, du horst, du
        horst, du siehst” match those in the first stanza.  The
        climactic low F-natural is on “Schmerzen.”
        1:11 [m. 48]--Stanza 2, line 6, set as at 0:26 [m.
        18].  The vocal interjections are on “und nimmst,” “der
        kei-” and “-nen doch,” breaking up the word “keinen.”  The
        last line is completed on “zu Herzen.”
        1:17 [m. 52]--Stanza 2, lines 7-8, set as at 0:32 [m. 22]
        with climactic longer repetition of the last line, now the
        powerful “ob du ein Herze hast” (“whether you even have a
        heart”), more potent than the earlier “und du nicht hören willt”
        (“and you will not hear me”).
        1:26 [m. 58]--Cadence and postlude, as at 0:41 [m.
        28].  The quiet final chord is held.  
        1:37--END OF SONG [60 mm.] 
       
    
     
    
     
    
     
    
      
      
        
    
      2. Salamander (Salamander).  Text by Karl
      Lemcke.  Mit Laune (With good humor).  Modified strophic
      form.  A MINOR/MAJOR, 4/4 time (Middle key F-sharp
        minor/major, low key F minor/major).
      
      German Text:
      Es saß ein Salamander
      Auf einem kühlen Stein,
      da warf ein böses Mädchen
      Ins Feuer ihn hinein.
      
      Sie meint’, er soll verbrennen,
      Ihm ward erst wohl zu Mut,
      wohl wie mir kühlem Teufel
      Die heiße Liebe tut.
      
      English Translation
      
      0:00 [m. 1]--Stanza 1, lines 1-2.  The voice begins on
      an upbeat, and the piano immediately responds with a descending
      A-minor arpeggio that turns back up on C major.  The vocal
      melody marches up against this arpeggio.  The second line is
      marked by a turning gesture on “kühlen” over “dominant”
      harmony.  After the voice reaches its cadence, this “turning”
      gesture is strongly imitated by the piano leading into the next
      lines.
      0:07 [m. 5]--Stanza 1, lines 3-4.  The voice leaps up
      to begin the third line, then plunges down.  The piano
      figuration continues to evoke the “turning” gesture with the
      harmony again hinting at the “relative” C major.  At the word
      “Mädchen,” there is a dissonant “diminished” chord which is
      reiterated when the voice jumps up again to begin line 4. 
      The line continues in the voice with a downward arch as the piano
      left hand leaps up and down in octaves.  The line is
      completed on the “dominant” chord, but the piano immediately plays
      a forceful gesture on the “diminished” harmony with the hands in
      contrary motion.  The voice then uses this gesture to begin a
      higher repetition of line 4 that ends with a full A-minor
      cadence.  
      0:15 [m. 10]--With the vocal cadence, the piano begins an
      interlude based on the opening vocal melody.  The left hand,
      in octaves, outlines that melody against mildly syncopated
      long-short chords in the right hand.  Then things become
      suddenly quieter as the right hand plays off-beat chords after
      left hand bass notes.  These right-hand chords are a
      disguised version of the turning gesture from the second
      line.  They slow down with a pause in preparation for the
      vocal entry of stanza 2.
      0:21 [m. 14]--Stanza 2, lines 1-2.  The key signature
      changes to A major.  The statement of line 1 is simply a
      major-key version of the line from stanza 1, with harmony on
      C-sharp minor substituted for the previous C major.  However,
      a break is added after the line for the piano to echo its final
      gesture, adding an upper harmony.  The second line is also
      changed to major, complete with the “turning” gesture, which is
      again imitated by the piano, this time more gently and with a
      harmonic shift toward C-sharp minor.
      0:29 [m. 19]--Stanza 2, lines 3-4.  Line 3 is like
      stanza 1, but the piano and voice both suggest C-sharp
      minor.  Things change with line 4.  The voice leaps up,
      then climbs chromatically, firmly establishing A major. 
      There is also upward motion in the left-hand octaves.  The
      right hand, however, which is richly harmonized, has a downward
      chromatic motion alternating with lower notes.  This contrary
      motion between the voice and the right hand evokes the forceful
      piano gesture heard before the repetition of the line in stanza
      1.  There is thus a connection between “Feuer” (“fire”) there
      and “heiße Liebe” (“hot love”) here.  The piano then states
      that very gesture leading into the analogous line repetition.
      0:34 [m. 23]--The repetition of line 4 reverses the
      chromatic contrary motion, the voice moving down and stretching
      out the word “heiße” against upward motion in both hands of the
      piano.  The word “Liebe” is then stretched out before an
      emphatic A-major cadence whose piano figures, with their dramatic
      pauses, echo the corresponding A-minor cadence in stanza 1.
      0:38 [m. 25]--The postlude begins like a major-key version
      of the interlude from 0:15 [m. 10], but the left-hand octaves and
      the syncopated chords in the right hand are stretched out for
      another two measures, with the left hand twice leaping down,
      moving lower each time and ending up in the piano’s lowest
      register.  Then, as in the interlude, things get quiet again,
      and there is an almost cheeky upward gesture in the right hand,
      which has moved to the tenor register, before the gently sighing
      final chords.
      0:52--END OF SONG [31 mm.]
     
    
      3. Das Mädchen spricht (The Girl Speaks). 
      Text by Otto Friedrich Gruppe.  Lebhaft und anmutig (Lively
      and graceful).  Strophic form.  A MAJOR, 3/4
      time (Middle key F-sharp major, low key F major).
      
      German Text:
      Schwalbe, sag mir an,
      Ist’s dein alter Mann
      Mit dem du’s Nest gebaut,
      Oder hast du jüngst erst
      Dich ihm vertraut?
      
      Sag’, was zwitschert ihr, 
      Sag’, was flüstert ihr
      Des Morgens so vertraut?
      Gelt, du bist wohl auch noch 
      Nicht lange Braut?
      
        English Translation
      
      0:00 [m. 1]--Stanza (strophe) 1, introduction.  The
      piano sets up the rhythms and arpeggios, evoking bird song, that
      pervade throughout.  The right hand has continuous descents
      in fast long-short-short rhythm that themselves move continually
      downward.  The left hand has simpler upward long-short leaps,
      but these also move steadily down.  After three measures, the
      second of which is mildly chromatic, there is a pause, then a soft
      sighing gesture in the right hand (against more long-short leaps
      in the left) preparing the vocal entry.
      0:07 [m. 5]--Stanza 1, lines 1-3.  The singer presents
      the first two lines in short downward-arching phrases that evoke
      the bird-like figuration from the introduction.  The piano is
      delicately interwoven, also deploying the long-short-short
      rhythms, descending against the vocal lines, then ascending
      between them.  The left hand begins each measure with a
      longer note, followed by a broad upward arching motion in
      long-short rhythm.  In the third line, the voice shoots up in
      long-short rhythms.  The piano, meanwhile, arranges its
      figures in a meter-crossing hemiola suggesting a longer
      3/2 measure over two 3/4 measures.  The voice repeats the
      line in the second of these measures, arching down and arriving on
      the “dominant” harmony.
      0:17 [m. 11]--Stanza 1, line 4.  After the voice
      arrives on the “dominant,” the piano abruptly shifts to the
      distant key of C major, emphasized with a sudden forte
      volume.  The figurations are now reversed, with the right
      hand playing the long-short rhythm, arching down, and the left
      playing upward-arching figures in the long-short-short
      rhythm.  C-major harmony alternates with chords on its
      “subdominant” F major.  The phrasing shifts the meter forward
      a beat.  The voice enters after two measures with a
      descending line in longer notes, with a strong “leaning”
      resolution on “hast du.”  After a breath, there is an upward
      leap to a similar “leaning” resolution on “jüngst erst.” 
      These resolutions move harmonically from C to F and then from F
      back to C.
      0:25 [m. 16]--Stanza 1, line 5.  The music has already
      started to become quieter, and now it gradually slows as the final
      line is sung twice and the metric sense is restored.  The
      voice moves immediately back to the home key for a straightforward
      descent in the first statement.  The piano is less direct,
      lingering on “diminished” harmonies and the “relative” minor
      harmony on F-sharp.  The right hand descends on the
      long-short rhythm while the left ascends on the
      long-short-short.  The piano arrests its motion as the voice
      begins its second statement of the line, rising to match the
      question in the text. The piano, in slow chords, plays a “plagal”
      cadence to confirm the home key, then the right hand rises in
      thirds (and a fourth) from the A-major chord. 
      0:32 [m. 20]--Stanza (strophe) 2, introduction.  The
      rising gesture just heard leads into a restatement of the
      introduction as at the beginning of the song.
      0:39 [m. 24]--Stanza 2, lines 1-3.  The vocal part is
      unchanged from the first stanza at 0:07 [m. 5].  The piano,
      however, is subtly changed.  It is marked pianissimo,
      a quieter level than before, and the long notes are eliminated in
      both hands.  This results in a more continuous flow in the
      right hand, but in the left, the constant long-short rhythm
      results in upward arching figures over two beats, thus
      anticipating the hemiola in line 3.  The left hand
      continues this pattern under line 3 itself, giving further
      emphasis to the cross-meter effect.  This change in the piano
      for these lines is the only thing preventing an exact strophic
      repetition.
      0:50 [m. 30]--Stanza 2, line 4.  The motion to C major
      restores the previous piano figuration, and the statement is as in
      stanza 1 at 0:17 [m. 11].  The “leaning” resolutions are on
      “bist wohl” and “auch noch.”
      0:57 [m. 35]--Stanza 2, line 5.  Slowing, quieting
      twice-sung question, moving back home, as at 0:25 [m. 16]. 
      The rising gesture in the right hand leads to the final statement
      of the introduction music as a postlude.
      1:05 [m. 39]--Postlude.  The introduction music is
      stated for a third time, the only change being at the end, where
      the soft sighing gesture is replaced by an emphatic final cadence.
      1:15--END OF SONG [42 mm.]
     
    
      4. Maienkätzchen (Catkins).  Text by Detlev
      von Liliencron.  Grazioso.  Modified strophic form with
      greatly extended second verse.  E-FLAT MAJOR, 3/4 time (Low
      key C major).
      
      German Text:
      Maienkätzchen, erster Gruß,
      Ich breche euch und stecke euch
      An meinen alten Hut.
      
      Maienkätzchen, erster Gruß,
      Einst brach ich euch und steckte euch
      Der Liebsten an den Hut.
      
      English Translation
      
      0:00 [m. 1]--Stanza 1.  In a two-bar introduction
      beginning on an upbeat, the piano establishes a figure with a
      chromatic downward-turning dotted (long-short) rhythm in thirds
      that will become significant.  The voice enters on the first
      line with a rising arpeggio, downward leap, and upward skip. 
      The piano harmonizes, then partly imitates the line with harmonies
      in thirds and sixths against a pulsing, syncopated left
      hand.  The second line resembles the first in the voice, with
      an added breath break after “ich breche euch.”  The right
      hand begins an octave higher, then descends instead of
      imitating.  The third line is simply a descending arpeggio
      and upward leap using slow and fast long-short rhythm against
      detached piano chords.
      0:14 [m. 8]--The stanza ends with a full cadence leading
      into a brief interlude.  A left-hand arpeggio leads to the
      downward-turning dotted rhythm heard at the beginning, in the
      tenor voice of the left hand at a new forte volume level,
      the harmony moving to the “dominant.”  The right hand has
      punctuating downbeat/upbeat descending harmonies.  After two
      iterations of the rhythm, the hands reverse, with the right hand
      playing it twice in thirds over left-hand chords, now back at a
      quiet level.  These are back in the home key, but the dotted
      figures are a third higher than they were in the introduction.
      0:23 [m. 13]--Stanza 2.  The first line is sung and
      accompanied as in Stanza 1.  Instead of continuing
      immediately to the second line, however, the singer lingers on
      “erster Gruß,” repeating it in slower notes.  Under this
      lengthened repetition, the piano part surprisingly resembles its
      continuation under the second line before.  Brahms marks the
      repetition sostenuto in both the piano and voice, and both
      turn toward the “subdominant” key (A-flat).
      0:30 [m. 17]--The second line is now sung to the
      downward-turning dotted rhythm, back in the home key, and the
      piano accompaniment, which doubles the voice, is almost exactly
      the same as the last two measures of the interlude that preceded
      the stanza.  The third line has the same downward arch as
      before, but it is higher, straightens out the fast long-short
      rhythm, and ends with an incomplete and questioning “deceptive”
      cadence.
      0:38 [m. 21]--The second and third lines are
      repeated.  The second line is a fifth higher (forcefully
      beginning on the song’s highest pitch), over “dominant” harmony,
      now without the right-hand doubling.  The left hand takes the
      lead with the rising dotted rhythm in a tenor line, and the right
      has off-beat chords.  The dotted rhythm on “steckte euch”
      moves down a step, and the harmony again turns to the colorful
      “subdominant” (A-flat).  The third line is now tenderly sung
      to the same notes as in the first stanza but stretched out to a
      much broader half-quarter rhythm.  The piano adds rests
      between its chords here.
      0:46 [m. 25]--Postlude.  At the warm final vocal
      cadence, the piano twice reiterates the now familiar and
      comforting downward-turning dotted rhythm over left-hand
      arpeggios, the second a fourth higher than the first (again
      hinting at the “subdominant”).  The left hand briefly drops
      out as the right trails down in a preparatory arpeggio on the
      “supertonic” (F) before the two rolled, detached forte
      chords of the final cadence.  Throughout the song, there has
      been no hint of regret, only increasingly tender nostalgia.
      0:58--END OF SONG [29 mm.] 
     
    
      5. Mädchenlied (Girl’s Song).  Text by Paul
      Heyse.  Leise bewegt (With quiet motion).  Modified
      strophic form with coda-like final verse (AAA’B).  B
        MINOR, 3/8 time (Middle key A minor, low key G minor).
      (The title Mädchenlied is also used for Op. 85, No. 3 and
      Op. 95, No. 6.)
      
      German Text:
      Auf die Nacht in den Spinnstuben
      Da singen die Mädchen,
      Da lachen die Dorfbuben,
      Wie flink gehn die Rädchen!
       
      Spinnt jedes am Brautschatz,
      Daß der Liebste sich freut.
      Nicht lange, so gibt es
      Ein Hochzeitsgeläut.
       
      Kein Mensch, der mir gut ist,
      Will nach mir fragen.
      Wie bang mir zumut ist,
      Wem soll ich’s klagen?
       
      Die Tränen rinnen
      Mir übers Gesicht -
      Wofür soll ich spinnen,
      Ich weiß es nicht!
      
      English Translation
      
      0:00 [m. 1]--Stanza (strophe) 1 (A).  The voice
      begins on an upbeat, doubled and harmonized by the piano. 
      The singer moves up three notes, then descends four notes. 
      After an upturn, the same pattern is used a step higher for the
      second line.  The piano tumbles down and turns back up in
      continuously “spinning” sixteenth notes, sometimes harmonized by a
      sixth, fifth, or third.  Each line is marked by a bass
      punctuation on the downbeat.  The third line seems as if it
      will continue the pattern another step higher, but after the
      upward rise, it falls in an arpeggio.  The fourth line is
      like the first, but the upbeat is on the first note of the
      four-note descent (against an ascending piano) and the last word
      is stretched out with a sighing gesture.
      0:12 [m. 9]--As the voice completes the “sighing” gesture,
      the piano plays an upbeat resembling the opening.  A dolce
      interlude begins with the last vocal note, the piano playing a
      slower, extended descent in “weeping” detached notes over the
      “spinning” upward arpeggios.  This descent begins with an
      emphasis on the “subdominant” E minor, then reaches down to the
      tenor range before the upbeat to Stanza 2.
      0:17 [m. 1, upbeat from m. 12]--Stanza (strophe) 2 (A). 
      Brahms uses a repeat sign for this stanza.  There are some
      changes to the declamation, such as the first upbeat being on one
      word instead of two and the second on two words instead of one in
      a simple reversal.  Most notably, in the upturn at the end of
      the second line, the word “freut” is used where the two-syllable
      “Mädchen” had been before.  The last two lines have the same
      declamation.
      0:28 [m. 9]--Interlude as at 0:12.
      0:33 [m. 13]--Stanza (strophe) 3 (A’).  The
      vocal line is essentially the same as in the first two stanzas,
      but the upbeats are removed from the second and fourth lines and
      replaced by rests.  The piano is entirely different. 
      The “spinning” sixteenth notes are reversed in direction,
      beginning with upward motion.  With this reversal, the first
      upbeat is not doubled, and the doubling of the second and third
      upbeats is placed against the continuous motion rather than being
      part of it.  The same is true for the arpeggio in the third
      line, which is now doubled and harmonized completely instead of
      partially, over rising left-hand figures in meter-disrupting
      two-beat groups.  The spinning motion abruptly stops under
      the last “lamenting” line. 
      0:45 [m. 21]--After the arrest of the motion under the last
      line, the dolce interlude begins and continues as it had
      after the first two stanzas.  Its last measure adds a new
      left-hand arpeggio, a turn to major, and a dotted rhythm in the
      right hand, implying a forward-thrusting motion into the new music
      of the last stanza.
      0:51 [m. 25]--Stanza 4 (B).  The first two
      lines are expressively set to a continuous descent that begins in
      major but turns to minor.  This is accompanied by dolce
      rising arpeggios in the “spinning” sixteenth-note motion. 
      These emphasize the “subdominant” harmony on E, first major, then
      minor.  The second line ends with a “plagal” motion back to
      B, but the arrival is on B major, not minor.  This motion is
      echoed in a very brief interlude that uses the familiar “weeping”
      detached notes.  This suddenly builds in volume.
      1:00 [m. 31]--The third line is set to an arpeggio
      resembling the one in the other three stanzas, but the harmony is
      new, on the remote D-sharp minor (a chord borrowed from the home
      major key).  The singer now cries out in despair, forte,
      and the piano arpeggios and chords are again in the
      meter-disrupting two-beat hemiola grouping.  The
      piano plays the familiar upbeat, and the singer, seemingly in the
      home major key, presents the last line, beginning on the downbeat,
      still forte.  The piano has a strong accent on a very
      colorful harmony that manages to suggest both the home major and
      minor keys.  The spinning arpeggios follow, but the singer
      holds and suspends a note instead of completing the line’s typical
      “sighing” gesture.
      1:08 [m. 36]--With another upbeat lead-in from the piano,
      the singer repeats the final line a step lower, now to the same
      notes as in the other stanzas (particularly the third, without the
      upbeat).  It is quieter than the first statement as the
      outcry of despair subsides.  The piano again plays the
      “spinning” motion.  As in the first statement, however, the
      “sighing” gesture is not completed, and the note that should
      descend is again suspended and held.  Finally, the spinning
      motion is arrested, and the singer presents a third and final
      statement of the last line to a simple but tragic descent from E
      to B, again in minor, in slow full-measure notes.  The piano
      slowly plays and holds notes that result in a dissonant “ninth”
      chord.
      1:16 [m. 42]--Overlapping the singer’s final pathetic
      descent, the piano emerges into the familiar interlude that has
      been heard between each stanza, now serving as a postlude. 
      As a result of careful planning, the overlapping notes in the
      voice exactly match those in the other stanzas.  The
      “weeping” detached notes lead where they have before, but as after
      the third stanza, there is a soothing turn to the home major on
      the last chord, which is held.
      1:35--END OF SONG [45 mm.]
      END OF SET
      
      
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