Scoring: Coro SATB, 2 Fl, 2 Ob, 2 Clt, 2 Fg, 2 Cor, 3 Trb, Timp, Arpa ad lib., 2 Vl, Va, Vc, Cb

Brahms’ elegy Nänie op. 82, based on the poem by Friedrich von Schiller, was composed in 1880/81 following the death of the painter Anselm Feuerbach, whom Brahms greatly admired. In contrast with the poem, Brahms’ Nänie ends full of hope: after earthly decline, beauty can live on in art.

As in his Deutsches Requiem op. 45, in Nänie Brahms creates a musical connection between mourning a...