Performers: Monteverdi choir (female section), Anneke Scott, Nuala Hebert, J.E.Gardiner.
This work has the paradoxical distinction of both the beginning of the excellent series of secular part songs that Brahms wrote, but is also unique within this output. Written for three-part women’s chorus throughout (except for a short four-part a cappella passage in the middle section of No. 4), this Op. 17 stands out because of the exceedingly romantic combination of two horns and harp set as an accompaniment. The harp was an instrument to which Brahms would rarely again turn (only in the German Requiem, Op. 45 and in the Nänie, Op. 82, and in none of the symphonies). Brahms remarked himself that he was not so fond of the instrument, since his role in the orchestra is to “make an effect.” In contrast, he always wrote effectively for horns, despite refusing to compose for the new valve instrument. The highly diverse texts lend themselves well to this combination. The choral writing is relatively simple, since multi-voice counterpoint is kept at a minimum: the three parts sing mostly in block harmonies. The one notable passage of counterpoint is at the end of each verse in No. 3. The songs were among several works for women’s chorus written around this time, including the Ave Maria, Op. 12, the Three Sacred Choruses, Op. 37, the setting of the 13th Psalm, Op. 27, and the somewhat later and less substantial Twelve Songs and Romances, Op. 44. These works owe their existence to Brahms’s directorship of the Hamburg Women’s Choir. No. 2 is Brahms’s only setting of Shakespeare (in Schlegel’s translation) other than the unpublished and rather minor “Ophelia” songs.