Brahms did not conceive the Quartets, Op. 31, as a set. Composed in 1859 and 1863, the three pieces were assembled and published in 1864.

Renowned for "abstract" instrumental masterpieces, Brahms wrote more vocal music than instrumental music. He published 31 volumes of solo Lieder, six volumes of duets, five of quartets, and an immense amount of choral music. During this particular period of Brahms' creativity, the folk-song aesthetic permeated all of his vocal compositions. Brahms once wrote to Clara Schumann that the folk song is the ideal toward which the composer of songs must strive. In the Quartets, Op. 31, Brahms speaks the language of the folk song clearly in the diatonic melodies, frequent text repetition, especially of the last words of a verse, and the brief piano introductions.

Love is the subject of "Wechsellied zum Tanze" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 - 1832). A man asks a woman, indirectly, to be his sweetheart by suggesting she come to a dance with him. Brahms' unusual setting dates from 1859, making it the earliest of the Op. 31 set, and was first performed in Vienna on December 18, 1862. The song shifts between E flat major and A flat major until finally closing on A flat. Text is repeated freely in an arrangement that implies that the man gets his wish: throughout the song, the alto and bass pair up, as do the soprano and tenor, each pair taking turns singing a verse. Near the end, the pairs sing only a few measures apart. This gap becomes smaller until, in the last measures, all four parts sing together.

"Neckereien" (Teasing) is a traditional Moravian folk poem in which a man tells a woman that she will be his. The woman replies that she will not be his for even an hour and describes the various incarnations she will achieve in order to avoid him—prompting him to explain how he will catch her, whether she is a dove, rabbit or fish. Brahms composed his setting in 1863; it was first performed on April 17, 1864, in Vienna. He divided the two characters between the male and female members of the quartet in a setting that juxtaposes imitative and homorhythmic writing. For instance, tenor and bass enter alternately in fugato style as the bass repeats the tenor's text and melody a fifth lower. In contrast, soprano and alto sing the second verse in a homorhythmic fashion. The men begin the next verse as the soprano and alto had sung theirs, although on the dominant. But soon the bass once again falls behind the tenor.

In "Der Gang zum Liebchen" (The Way to My Sweetheart), a traditional Czech folk song, a man travels throughout the night, trying to find the way to his lover. Set in 1863, the song's two verses are in simple strophic form with a long coda that revisits the piano introduction with its rising motive, possibly meant to suggest the stride of the traveling man. Avoiding the finality of a dominant-tonic conclusion, Brahms closes the song like a hymn, with a plagal cadence.

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