Ex. 12-4: Liebestreu

No. 1 of Brahms's 6 Gesänge (6 Songs, Op. 3), set to a poem by Robert Reinick. Brahms wrote it in 1853, at the age of nineteen. Op. 3 was the first set of songs Brahms published, and "Liebestreu" ("Faithful Love") is its first song. Another song from Op. 3, "Liebe und Frühling I," is also in this app. (Ex. 11-6: Liebe und Frühling I by Johannes Brahms)

Brahms was a strict perfectionist who destroyed much of his early music. This is the song he chose to open his first published set.

The poem is a dialogue between a mother and her daughter. The mother tells her to sink her sad love in the deep sea and let it go. The daughter answers that a stone sinks and a flower dies, but her love will not — even if the rock breaks in the storm, her faithfulness stays.

The song starts dark, in E-flat minor, and ends bright, in B-flat major — the change to major matching the daughter's steady love. Under the voice, the piano is restless, with running triplets over a dark, low bass.

Brahms wrote this before he had even met Clara Schumann. Its story of a love that will not change is often seen as a hint of his own lifelong love for Clara, who was married and fourteen years older than him.

The poet, Robert Reinick, worked closely with Robert Schumann, who set his poems and wrote his opera Genoveva to Reinick's words. Op. 3 is dedicated to the writer Bettina von Arnim, a friend of Goethe and Beethoven.

From the album Johannes Brahms - EP by Islama Abdullayeva (2022)
Spotify