Why Brahms entitled this set "Poems" may refer to the variety of types found here. The first four represent the folksong-type settings found in Opus 14, but display more variety and a more deeply interpretive approach. The final song is an elaborate art song, distinctly different in style, which invokes a typically Romantic subject (after Möricke) rather than the more earthy folk sentiments of the others.

1. Der Kuß (The Kiss). This is a clever setting of a lover's first stolen kiss in which the unusual phrase structure creates the anxiety of unconsummated desire.

2. Scheiden und Meiden (Separation and Avoidance) depicts in the simplest folk style the parting of two lovers.

3. In der Ferne (In the Distance) is the companion piece for Scheiden und Meiden, written in the same key, with the same melodic material and with identical figuration in the piano. Here, the song is expanded as one of the lovers thinks of his sweetheart far away.

4. Der Schmied (The Smith). The piano depicts the strokes of the hammer, while the voice depicts the maiden's longing for her working lover, creating an ironic analogy between work and love.

An eine Äolsharfe (To an Aeolian Harp). In this setting, Brahms uses the imitation of the harp in the piano to invoke nature, depicting the metaphor in the text of nature as an expression of emotion. It is a wonderful and sophisticated combination of recitative and song.



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4.Der Schmied

Brahms seldom provided the rhythmic variety found among the songs of Franz Schubert or Hugo Wolf, but this simple song, lasting no more than a minute and a half, is so vigorously and rhythmically declaimed that always leaves a stirring impression. Der Schmied (The Blackmith) sets a poem by Ludwig Uhland, a remarkable exemplar of German Romanticism, an accomplished poet, jurist, historian, and collector and editor of folk songs and an indefatigable advocate for German unity and human rights. His verse identifies the singer as a young woman who describes her sweetheart, the village blacksmith. The music makes clear that he is a young man of great strength. "I hear my love," the young woman tells the listener. He's swinging his hammer, it rings and resounds, it sounds forth far and wide like the clanging of bells, through lanes and the town square. "By the black forge sits my love, but when I walk past, the bellows expand, the flames rise up and glow all about him." Marked Allegro, the song holds a vocal line that covers only one octave. By keeping the singer in the richest part of the voice, the tonal quality can be consistent and powerful to match the sharply drawn accompaniment. In 3/4 meter, the song throws off sparks as the hammer rings against the anvil. Brahms faithfully captures the bounce of the hammer as it strikes by calling for a half note in the bass clef, followed by a quarter note placed against a pattern of sixteenth note, eighth note, and sixteenth rest in the right hand. Some accompanists mistakenly seek to iron out the right-hand figures, allowing the left hand greater prominence, but sacrificing the jangling impact of the forge's hammer blows. There is no introduction: voice and piano begin on a quarter-note upbeat before plunging right in. Established at a steady forte, the vocal line swells to a crescendo for the final two lines of each strophe. The singer rolls forth her part in quarter notes, save for three points in each verse, as the accompaniment carries the rhythmic burden. The admiration and adoration she exudes for her blacksmith love augur well for happiness to come.

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5.An eine Äolsharfe

An eine Äolsharfe (Angelehnt an die Epheuwand) is the fifth and last song in the Gedichte (5) published by Johannes Brahms in 1862. This song, which is thought to have been composed four years previous to its publication, takes its text from a poem by the same name (known by its title "To an Aeolian Harp," as well as its incipit, "Leaning against the ivy-covered wall....") that appeared in Eduard Mörike's 1838 collection Gedichtsammlung. The poem conveys a haunting picture of love and mourning through evocative imagery that invites musical rendering. The poem's obvious pictorial element is the harp, although its strings are never actually plucked; the opening line of the poem indicates that it remains untouched. Still, the mysterious breeze of memory sets them in motion and in doing so conjures images of a lost love. In fact, the poet says, the strings of the harp ring with the breath of the lover himself, even as his body lies in a grave recently dug. "I hear your whisper in the strings," the singer mourns, "Drawn by the exquisite grief." Brahms skillfully uses texture to effect the transitions between the real and imagined worlds, the opening lines beginning in a quasi-recitative with sparse chordal accompaniment. As the singer becomes carried away in remembrance, urging the harp to "begin once more your melodious lament," the accompaniment becomes more active, the "strummed" chords loosening into arpeggios even as the mode shifts momentarily from minor to major. In this imaginary world, the singer's grief turns to ardor, and the piano likewise becomes more engaged and dramatic. As the vision fades, so to does the musical energy. Suddenly, however, a gust of wind sets the strings once again in motion and with a surge of pianistic flourish, the singer is taken back to the tragic moment of loss. Brahms' setting of this second and final stanza, the text of which is substantially shorter than the first, follows a tighter, more condensed dramatic contour leading to the poem's poignant final image: a rose shedding its petals. Brahms renders these images, as well as the various dramatic pauses and shifts written into the text, with an ear for chromatic inflection and unexpected harmonic turns (more so than in later songs), though the prevailing minor mode transforms into a gently resolute major in the song's final measures.

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