“I think they are very easy to play and delightful too,” wrote Johannes Brahms in August 1860 to Breitkopf & Härtel to heighten the songs’ appeal to the publisher. He had already sent his “Four Songs Accompanied by Two Horns and Harp” to his Hamburger Frauenchor. He chose prominent texts by Shakespeare, Ossian, Eichendorff and others, and soon turned to his trusted friend Clara Schumann, whose transcription of three of the four Songs is the principal source of the work today. The publishers Brahms had contacted did not entirely share the composer’s vision of “horns and harp” as a particularly fitting and attractive instrumental accompaniment, and felt there could be problems here. Nonetheless, their reservations could not hinder the lasting success of the Four Songs.

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