Recently Added Sheet Music - 9 March

This week Anne has created a number of new arrangements by Brahms. Bach, Handel, Albinoni, Paganini and the well known guitar piece the Spanish Romance.

I wanted to write a little about one of the pieces and decided upon Brahms Lullaby as I remember playing it to my children when they were babies in attempt to soothe them. I discovered that Brahms actually wrote the song to a lost love on the birth of her second child.

Sadly Brahms view of love was very much shaped as a young boy. Growing up his parents had a loveless marriage and that combined with his first job at the age of twelve playing in a brothel lead to confusion when it came to love. However, at the age of twenty five as well as being a rising music star he fell in love with Bertha who sang in a choir that he conducted. They spent a lot of time together and she used to sing a Viennese song to him. Brahms emotional struggle resulted in him ending the relationship.

Ten years later he saw a pregnant Bertha with her husband and child, he felt sadness, longing and loss on what could have been. As a gift to celebrate the birth of her son he wrote his lullaby, between notes you can hear the song Bertha used to sing to him. She named her son Johannes.

Today the song is still widely used, and will remind people of different scenarios be it a film, place or memory, to me it is the tune my old wind up jewellery box played as the ballerina twirled around (now I am showing my age!).