Brahms composed the piece in 1881, in memory of his deceased friend Anselm Feuerbach. Nanie (Song of Lamentation) is not about simple despair or mere complaint. Even in such dark moments, Schiller's romanticism is expressed as a yearning for the unattainable. The work opens with "Auch das Schone muss sterben!" (Even Beauty must die), and the tension between the veracity of the message and the yearning of the human spirit for the timelessness of...