(pub. 1884)

The unique scoring of these two songs, as well as their overall spirit was as a result of Brahms writing them specifically for his dear friends Amalie and Joseph Joachim. The couple had recently split, and as Brahms had given them an earlier version of Geistliches Wiegenlied for their wedding, he felt a new version of that work paired with a romantic song scored specifically for them to perform together might lead them toward reconciliation. These songs return to the older, more expansive style of Brahms Magelone Romanzen, Opus 33.

1. Gestillte Sehnsucht (Stilled Desire). Here, the pain of the protagonist is given relief by the gentle bird songs and breezes of the evening. Brahms evokes the scene with a gently rippling accompaniment, punctuated by occasional dissonances in the viola. A central climax portrays the height of the poet's anguish then returns to the gentle music of the opening.

2. Geistliches Wiegenlied (Sacred Lullaby). This was first completed in an earlier version in 1863. Brahms revised it in 1864, and again for this Opus. The song opens with a quotation of the old hymn "Josef, lieber Josef mein" (Joseph, My Dear Joseph), setting the context of the song as a lullaby Mary sings to the baby Jesus. The gently rocking figures that permeate this peaceful and evocative song are typical lullaby gestures.



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2.Geistliches Wiegenlied: Die ihr schwebet

Set to a text from the Spanisches Liederbuch, attributed to Lope de Vega and translated by Emanuel Geibel and Paul Heyse, Die ihr Schwebet, um dies Palmen (You who hover about these palm trees) reveals the differences that existed between Brahms' approach to a poem and that of Hugo Wolf, who set this same text 26 years later. Brahms chose to specify a contralto for his singer and added viola to customarily piano-only accompaniment. His lullaby (as he wrote to violinist Joseph Joachim not long before the latter wed contralto Amalie Schneeweiss) is just that, a "marvelous old Catholic song," consoling, soothing, and soft-edged, rising only briefly to highlight the momentary distress of the infant Jesus. Wolf, by contrast, captured the feverish anxiety of Mary, captured, too, the fierce winds that whip the palm trees. Two different approaches, each beautiful and affecting in its own way. Brahms titled the second of his two Op. 91 songs Geistliches Wiegenlied (Sacred cradle song). Like the other sacred texts contained within this collection, the poem reflects a strong Catholic sensibility. Mary implores the angels surrounding the wind-whipped palm trees to hush the treetops. Her child is asleep. "You palm trees of Bethlehem, why do you thrash so in the raging wind? Be quiet, bend down gently." Her child is asleep. The heavenly child is distressed, how weary he has become of the world's sorrows. Now that he is asleep, quiet the treetops. A raging cold roars down. "What can I use to warm the limbs of my child?" You winged angels hovering in the wind, quiet the treetops. My child is asleep. The tenderness that suffuses this song fits the comforting richness of the contralto voice well. Brahms knew Schneeweiss and undoubtedly gave this song to her and her about-to-be husband as more than a wedding gift. Unlike Wolf's setting, this Wiegenlied calmly begins, the mother's supplications already having been answered. Not until the second verse does the volume increase with the whipping about of the palms before softening again. Intensity rises once more to describe the child's distress at the beginning of the third stanza. To an accompaniment rising in pitch, the child's distress is heard in the music, but once again the child slumbers and the winds are stilled.

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