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 temporality and the eternal recurrence of beauty can be sensed in the sheer beauty of Brahm's music. Unabridged digitally enhanced reprint of the composer's own vocal score that was issued by Breitkopf and Hartel in the early 20th century.