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Brahms's Vocal Duets and Quartets with Piano: A Guide with Full Texts and Translations

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The vocal duets and quartets by Brahms are performed very rarely these days, but their number includes some works that can stand with the composer's finest efforts and are thus deserving of more frequent hearings. In this book, Lucien Stark analyzes the 25 duets (including the five numbers of Opus 75, which were written for one or two voices but are almost always done as solos) and 61 quartets that comprise this body of work.

For each song, Stark provides the German text, along with an English translation. He does not attempt to maintain the rhyme or meter in the translation, which lets him reflect accurately the meaning of the German. He then gives the range employed for each voice in the work, the approximate timing for a performance, and the form. This information is followed by a brief descriptive analysis of the work. Stark's analyses are not so detailed or exhaustively researched as those by Eric Sams in his just-published volume on Brahms's solo works.

The major deficiency of this book is the absence of musical quotations. In his introduction, the author admits that "much of the analysis assumes that a score will be accessible to the reader." Scores for many of these works are available only as individual sheets -- and for a few, not in print at all -- which makes it difficult to get full value from much of Stark's otherwise commendable writing. A 158-page book that sells for $35 should have been expanded with quotations of key musical material.