Musico‐Poetic ‘Paths towards ♭II’ in Brahms's Lieder

ABSTRACT Neapolitan relations, among the most ubiquitous chromatic phenomena in Johannes Brahms's music, have been primarily analysed in the context of the composer's instrumental works rather than his lieder. Building on Donald Tovey's (1927 [1949] and 1928) accounts of Neapolitan relations in Schubert's works, and considering their influence on Brahms's modulatory strategies in the chamber music of the 1860s and 1890s (Webster 1978 and 1979, Wintle 1987, Smith 1998 and Notley 2005), this article interprets late‐emerging Neapolitan regions in three of Brahms's songs composed between 1853 and 1868 – ‘Mondnacht’, WoO 21; ‘Wie rafft ich mich auf in der Nacht’, Op. 32 No. 1; and ‘Die Mainacht’, Op. 43 No. 2 – as enacting narrative progressions from states of concealment to revelation in poetry by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff, August Graf von Platen‐Hallermünde and Ludwig Christoph Heinrich Hölty. These compelling literary vehicles illuminate how Brahms's modulatory ‘paths towards ♭II’ can be construed as (1) the product of song‐spanning plagal relations, mode mixture or progress through the ‘Neapolitan Complex’ (Wintle 1987); (2) integrated with Brahms's expressive manipulations of phrase rhythm, hypermetre, declamation and form; and (3) linked to ‘tonal problems’ and ‘promissory notes’ (Cone 1982 and Carpenter 2005). Close readings of each lied argue that the significance of ♭II is most fully grasped at each song's end and as the culmination of long‐range modulatory processes, offering a new perspective on the ways in which Brahms engages poetic readings.