Nänie, Op. 82

Brahms wrote this single-movement work for chorus and orchestra in memory of the painter Anselm Feuerbach, setting a poem by Friedrich Schiller whose opening line translates as 'Even beauty must die.' The piece opens with a gently rocking oboe melody over plucked strings before the full choir enters, working Schiller's long hexameter lines into an expansive but intimate lamentation. A contrasting middle section shifts to a warmer, slower key as the text describes Thetis and the sea-nymphs rising to mourn Achilles, before the opening music returns in an abbreviated, more concentrated form.

What to listen for

Notice how the oboe carries the opening theme almost alone, setting a pastoral, quietly mournful tone before the choir takes it up and gradually builds it into something closer to a fugue, with voices entering in overlapping lines. In the middle section, pay attention to the change of metre from the swinging 6/4 of the outer sections to a steadier 4/4, which gives the music a sense of stillness. The final pages close with a throbbing timpani pedal note underpinned by trombones and plucked low strings, as the choir repeats the penultimate, more hopeful line of the poem rather than ending on a note of pure grief.

Recommended rendition

The recording by the Berlin Radio Chorus and Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado (Deutsche Grammophon) is often cited for the transparency of its choral texture and the natural warmth of the orchestral balance.

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