Brahms' output of vocal music is greater than that of his instrumental music. He published thirty-one volumes of solo Lieder (songs), six volumes of duets and five of quartets. His settings up to 1860 are either strophic (each verse the same) or varied strophic. With the publication of the Songs, Op. 32, in 1864 we find Brahms' first through-composed settings, in which each verse is set differently. After 1877, through-composed songs nearly disappear and strophic settings find new life. Varied strophic forms appear at all points in Brahms' career. Although he set many poems by Goethe and two by Schiller, Brahms showed a predilection for the work of second-rate poets, usually choosing texts for their musical potential.

All six of the Op. 3 songs date from 1853 except "In der Fremde," which was composed in 1852. The set was printed in 1854. Brahms revised "Liebe und Frühling I" in 1882, limiting his alterations to the re-voicing of a few chords and publishing the result in 1883.

Brahms introduced himself to the Schumanns in Düsseldorf with the love-lament, "Liebestreu" (Faithful Love), a setting of a poem by Robert Reinick. Often cited as the best of Brahms' early songs, "Liebestreu" show the meticulous attention to detail typical of all Brahms' work. In E flat minor and with a plodding accompaniment, the song features a voice part that parallels the left hand of the piano part, usually a beat behind. At "Ein Stein wohl bleibt auf das Meeres Grund" the voice and piano are in unison. The varied strophic setting moves poignantly to E flat major in the third verse.

Both "Liebe und Frühling I" (Love and Spring I) and "Liebe und Frühling II" are poems by Hoffmann von Fallersleben and both are set in B major. Otherwise, the two are completely different textually and musically. The first, in which the narrator equates creeping vines and tendrils with the way thoughts of spring creep into his mind, is constructed of repeated phrases paralleled by the piano part, the first of which returns, at half tempo, to close the brief song. The second, the cry of a man who cannot experience spring without his sweetheart, is cast in ternary (ABA') form with a middle section on the dominant and a reprise of both music and text of section A.

"Lied " (Song) is from Bodenstedt's poem, "Ivan," and is the wish of a heart-broken woman, who sees eagles and seagulls snatching and consuming their prey, to be similarly swallowed by the Earth to end her suffering. In E flat minor, the only slightly varied strophic song closes with a dramatic coda as the woman tells of her heart breaking from pain and sorrow.

"In der Fremde" (In a Foreign Land) and "Lied" (Song) are by Joseph von Eichendorff (1788-1857). In the first, clouds rolling in from his former homeland remind the narrator that his parents have died and he no longer knows anyone there. He ponders the thought that soon he too will be laid to rest, and no one in his present home will know him any longer. Each verse becomes extended in this varied strophic song, which moves from a vague F sharp minor to major. Brahms set "Lied" in A major and in ternary form with a modified reprise setting new text and a central section in the darker key of F major. "Lied," as is "In der Fremde," is the lament of a displaced person. As he wanders through a valley he hears in the birds of the mountain greetings from his homeland.

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1.Liebestreu ('O versenk', o versenk' dein Leid')

The six songs in Brahms' Opus 3 set were not his first efforts in the lieder genre, though they were the first the finicky composer allowed to be published. Still, there is no denying they are among his earliest works in any genre, and while that status might seem to suggest they are less than worthy—less than rewarding to the listener—the collection clearly demonstrates to both listener and musicologist that the young Brahms was already a master in the realm of vocal writing. Liebestreu is the first song in Opus 3 and generally considered the finest in the set. With a text by poet Robert Reinick (1805-1852), Liebestreu (Love's fidelity) conveys the distress and sorrow of a young woman over lost love.

Liebestreu is stormy and brimming with tension, appropriately so for the fevered emotional pitch of the text and its vivid images of a cruel sea: "...sink your sorrow, my child...in the deep sea." The piano accompaniment is mainly made up of soft but anxious chords, with an ominous rising three-note motif appearing regularly throughout. The main theme is lovely in its soaring, angst-ridden beauty, powerfully conveying the young woman's torment and sense of loss. The whole imparts a sense of urgency and darkness, but also of tender and tormenting consolation, Brahms' music betraying anything but his supposedly reserved emotional manner. The song is a striking and thoroughly compelling creation that shares the exceedingly uncommon key of E flat minor with its sibling in the collection, Lied aus dem Gedicht No. 4, "Ivan."

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