Four Duets for voice, Op. 61

Brahms published the Four Duets op. 61 in 1874. This was a time of prolific vocal composition: all of the opuses 57-66 were collections of music for voice, with the lone exception of the C-Minor Piano Quartet, op. 60. However, at least two songs in the opus were written much earlier. The earliest, song no. 2, dates from 1852—before Brahms’ first direct contact with the Schumanns. In contrast, the harmonic style of song no. 3 foreshadows the late piano music, such as op. 116, published in 1892.
The text of the first song in the set, “Die Schwestern” (The Sisters) by Mörike, comes tailor-made for a female duet as twin sisters proclaim their identical charms and behavior. Brahms setting is strophic in G minor. With a turn to the major mode for the final stanza, he marks a change in narrative structure—a third person speaks—and an ironic twist in the tale: these sisters, so alike, now love the same man! At the final cadence Brahms turns back to minor in exact repetition of how each earlier stanza closed. Biographer Karl Geiringer notes a touch of Hungarian folk style in this piece.
“Klosterfräulein” (Nuns) projects a more somber mood. The setting shows Brahms interest and great ability with counterpoint between the two singers, but it also typifies overall his love of developing variation. The three strophes progress gradually from an incomplete harmonic accompaniment to one that is fuller and more assured tonally, and with the arrival of the final stanza Brahms intensifies to a triplet rhythm variation.
The third song, “Phänomen” (Phenomenon) to a text by Goethe, starts out with the Brahms that many of us have fallen in love with: rippling arpeggios below simple melodic lines, surprising harmonic twists, and a touch of metric uncertainty and hemiola. Midway through he explores canonic imitation between the voice parts and the music grows far more chromatic than anything yet heard in the set.
The final song, “Die Boten der Liebe” (Messengers of Love), mimics some of the envoys’ flight in a lilting 9/8 meter at a Vivace tempo. Brahms’ accompaniment is identical in all three strophes and includes wonderful glances at the subdominant (G major and minor) and supertonic (E minor) keys.

(c) Jason Stell