Johannes Brahms
Following the success of his first volume of choral-watzes of 1869, Brahms set another 14 songs to the same poetry from Polydora, the 1855 collection of German folk-poems and love-songs assembled by George Friedrich Daumer (1800-1875) plus a conclusion set to a poem of Goethe - "Zum Schluss". Composed from 1869 through 1874, the second volume also features numbers for solo voices placed between the 4-voiced settings. The first complete performance was given in Karlsruhe on May 8, 1875. The conductor Ernst Rudorff persuaded Brahms to orchestrate the accompaniment for No.9 (in an early version) for a concert given at Berlin's Hochschule on March 19, 1870. Offered here is a new orchestration by Richard W. Sargeant, Jr. Brahms' own orchestration is retained for his early version of the ninth song, while the final version of No.9 and the remainder have been newly orchestrated with the same forces employed by the composer.
