Brahms' Advanced "Nänie" for SATB and Orchestra

You won’t hear Brahms’ "Nänie" often. Have you ever heard it performed by a choir at all, by the way? Most of you probably haven’t and there is a simple explanation to that. It is very beautiful music piece, lyrical and deeply emotional, but the level of its difficulty makes it unpopular for choirs and orchestras. "Nänie" is one of the most difficult SATB pieces out there.

German classicist painter Anselm Feuerbach
(self-portrait)

Brahms composed it in 1881, deeply touched by the demise of his friend and Germany’ leading painter Anselm Feuerbach. Friedrich Schiller’s poem Nänie (‘nenia’ from Latin – ‘funeral song’) seemed to perfectly convey the composer’s emotions so he set it to music. As one of the poem’s sentences goes, ‘even the beauty must die’. Thus, Brahms expresses his lament on the inevitable death of everyone and everything.

Due to the complexity of the composition, there are not too many choirs that are experienced enough to be able to perform this piece brilliantly.