Brahms's Elegies

Nicole Grimes is Assistant Professor of Music at the University of California, Irvine. She serves on the Editorial Board of Music Analysis and is a member of the Board of Directors of the American Brahms Society. Previous works include Mendelssohn Perspectives (2012) and Rethinking Hanslick: Music, Formalism, and Expression (2013).

• Introduction; 1. Brahms's ascending circle: Hölderlin and Schicksalslied; 2. The ennoblement of mourning: Nänie and the death of beauty; 3. A disembodied head for mythic justice: Gesang der Parzen; 4. The last great cultural harvest: Nietzsche and the Vier ernste Gesänge; 5. The sense of an ending: music's return to the land of childhood; Epilogue.

Advance praise: 'Deftly weaving musical commentary into an elegant exploration of the broader cultural fabric of late nineteenth-century Germany, Grimes demonstrates how some of Brahms's greatest but least understood vocal compositions intersected with the intellectual, literary, and philosophical currents of his time. This compelling study represents contextual musicology at its best.' Walter Frisch, Columbia University