This is a parallel set to Opus 48. Again, as there, the final song is a longer and more complex commentary on the preceding songs. In this case, the subject is more general, commenting on the pain of desire, the loss of innocence and the ever present promise of death. Also, the effect here is more cumulative and overwhelming primarily because of the great length and power of the final song.

1. Am Sonntag Morgen (On Sunday Morning) These first two songs are paired in the way Numbers 2 and 3 were in Opus 48, representing respectively the female and male perspectives of infidelity. Here, in this through-composed setting, a woman attempts to deal with her lover's infidelity.

2. An ein Veilchen (To a Violet). Also through-composed, this longer and more varied setting depicts a man's wish that his unfaithful lover see his tears. The change in texture as the man gives his message of grief to the violet is especially effective.

3. Sehnsucht (Longing). A young man longs for his lover, who tarries far away. Brahms begins the song slowly and expressively as the protagonist expresses his longing, then moves into a fast and headlong dash to the end as he imagines he can see his sweetheart far away.

4. Wiegenlied (Cradle Song). This is beyond a doubt Brahms' most famous piece. It is written in his simplest folk idiom, charming and perfect in its small dimensions. The deep irony of the song is lost when taken out of the context of this set, as its true message speaks of an innocence that can never be regained.

5. Abenddämmerung (Evening Twilight). This long and moving song summarizes and intensifies the themes already presented in the four preceding songs. The subtlety and complexity of the accompaniment help to create the deep melancholy and almost mystical atmosphere. It is in an unusual rondo-like form, with the opening stanza returning twice.



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4.Wiegenlied ('Brahms' Lullaby')

Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Magic Horn of Youth), an anthology of German folk poetry put together during the first decade of the nineteenth century, was, famously, one of Gustav Mahler's favorite text sources; it might come as a shock to some to learn that probably the world's most famous lullaby, Johannes Brahms' Wiegenlied, Op. 49, No. 4, of 1868, takes its text, or half of it anyway, from that same imposing volume. This is a Lied that really needs no introduction. Few indeed are those who will not immediately recognize its tune (though recognizing its composer may well be another matter), who have not either sung it to a child or had it sung to them as a child, who have not run across one of the thousands upon thousands of music-boxes that play the song's melody when opened. The only other lullaby that can compare in international fame is Schubert's Wiegenlied, D. 498.

The first stanza of the Brahms Wiegenlied's text is, as mentioned, drawn from Des Knaben Wunderhorn. The second was written to match the first by Georg Scherer in 1849. Brahms sets each of these six-line stanzas to the same music. How wonderful and, for all the times we've heard it, still remarkable is the way that the melody's gentle upward groping—suggesting a child looking up out of the cradle—is expanded to a full octave at the end of each musical strophe! The touch, seemingly inevitable, is masterful.

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