Liebeslieder Walzer, Op. 52 (Brahms)

Johannes Brahms' Liebeslieder Waltzes are distributed across two opus numbers: 52 and 65. The waltzes are a collection of love songs in Ländler style for voices and four hands piano. The lyrics for the Liebeslieder come from Georg Friedrich Daumer's Polydora collection of folk songs and love poems. While there is no concrete record indicating the exact inspiration for the Waltzes, there is speculation that Brahms' motivation for the songs was his frustrated love for pianist Clara Schumann, composer Robert Schumann's wife.

The discussion of influence as it pertains to Brahms and the Liebeslieder Walzer op. 52 refers to the inspiration that a composer draws from an admired predecessor, which was commonplace among writers, artists, and composers of the 19th century. To contextualize influence, many relevant theorists will cite Harold Bloom, author of The Anxiety of Influence. According to Hussey, Bloom asserts, “all poets must deal with the anxiety that they feel toward their most admired predecessors. The predecessor, whose work inspired the later poet to pursue literary composition, is now the object of both envy and admiration from the later poet, who fears the precursor has left nothing else to be said”. In other words, composers feel a more urgent need to create original work that equals the merit of those of the preceding tradition. Rosen refers to Brahms as a “master of allusion” to other composers, further arguing that one cannot begin to understand Brahms’s work without an awareness of the contributing influences, which were a “necessary fact of creative life” for the composer.

One composer in particular who influenced Brahms, specifically within the Liebeslieder Walzer op. 52 was Franz Schubert. Brahms’s admiration of Schubert becomes apparent when looking at early performances of Schubert’s pieces and the tendency to study, at length, the composer’s works. According to Brodbeck, Schubert influenced Brahms’s Liebeslieder Walzer op. 52 through similarities to the 20 Ländler. First, Brahms sought to have his waltzes performed in informal musical evening settings similar to those intended for Schubert’s dances. Another reference to Schubert is the “Im ländler tempo” marking in op. 52, alluding to the 20 Ländler directly. Furthermore, the date of composition of the Liebeslieder Walzer’s composition suggests that Brahms had completed the editing of the 20 Ländler before starting his work on his own waltzes. Also, a specific request by Brahms to have each of his movements copied onto a separate sheet of paper demonstrates, to an extent, his uncertainty of how to order such seemingly unrelated pieces. This suggestion reflects a struggle similar to that which he faced in establishing an order for Schubert’s dances.

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