Brahms wrote these songs for the Women's Chorus of Hamburg, which he founded in 1859. The unusual scoring is a perfect sonority for the deeply Romantic content of the various poems and was inspired, naturally, by the opening line of the first song that refers to the "rich tones of the harp." The depth of Brahms' understanding and involvement with the Romantic movement is nowhere more clearly illustrated than in his choice of poems and in their lyrical, subdued and nostalgic setting. The songs are as follows: 1. Es tönt voller Harfenklang (The full tones of the harp resound), in C major, 2. Lied von Shakespeare (Song by Shakespeare), in E flat, 3. Der Gärtner (The Gardner), also in E flat, and 4. Gesang aus Fingal (Song of Fingal), in C minor, the longest and most ambitious chorus of the set.



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1.Es tönt ein voller Harfenklang

The first of Brahms' Gesange (4) für dreistimmigen Frauenchor mit Begleitung von Zwei Hornen und Harfe, Op. 17 (Four Songs for Three-Part Women's Choir With the Accompaniment of Two Horns and Harp), from 1860, Es tönt ein voller Harfenklang (A Full Harp Sound Rings) is one of his most gloriously Romantic works. A brief strophic song with two verses marked Adagio, con molto espressione, Es tönt ein voller Harfenklang opens and closes with a solo horn unfolding a slowly arpeggiated C major above a harp quickly arpeggiated C major second inversion dominant seventh chord with added ninth. The horn slowly winds down from its high G as the harp takes the harmony down through major and minor harmonies to close on a half cadence as the voices enter. Each verse of Friedrich Ruperti's passionately inconsolable text is set as two long-breathed melodies, the first a folk song-like tune in four bars followed by a aching, arching sigh in seven bars. Beneath the voices, the harp continues its lush major/minor harmonies with the solo horn punctuating the two phrases of the melody with a C major arpeggio. After the first verse, the horn and harp repeat the opening exactly, but after the second verse they repeat the opening and change the final cadence to a perfect cadence in the tonic.

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