Brahms--the vocal music

by A. Craig Bell

Brahms - The Vocal Music examines in detail the more than 150 choral works written by Johannes Brahms, considered one of the "greats" of choral music after his lieder were recorded by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. British musicologist A. Craig Bell brings to this third of his studies of musical giants his conviction that Brahms's work was not accorded its proper stature and was not frequently performed until his lieder were recorded by the famous lieder singer. These recordings revealed the true stature of Brahms as a lieder composer who ranks with such greats as Schumann, Wolf, and Schubert. Musically, Brahms's lieder are as varied and dramatic as the poetry they accompany. Bell employs his keen knowledge of the corpus of the composer's work to show how every musical phrase was inspired by the sentiments of the verse. He details the origin of each of the lieder poems, starting with the composer's first efforts and continuing to the disappointing Romanzen aus L. Tiecks Magelone and to the