Hope and the music of Brahms

About a year ago I came across the Serious songs composed by Brahms in 1896. The last vocal music he composed shortly after a woman he loved had a stroke. A time to be serious and to start considering life and death matters.

One in particular, Ich Wandte Mich ( So I returned)really hit me. I am not a music expert or an experienced singer but something in the music felt very mysterious. The text is from the bible, the Deuteronoms book, and its a very dark text, God looks back at the creation, and sees all the injustice committed by men unto men. The power is on the side of the opressors, and for the victims, there is no hope, or help to be have.

With these very strong words, he composed a music which seems a little light to me, or without understanding any of the German words, something like a broken heart story, an urequited love for a another human being.

When I interpreted this song, for a long time, I was focused on the feelings of injustice, the opression, the rage and despair one can feel when everything and everyone you love end up in ashes.

Then one day, someone suggested that I look at love.

There is love in this text, there is hope, but where?!

And I thought about my own children, I imagined them fighting and as sibblings sometimes do being harsh ar each other, fighting and maybe hurting each others feelings. And my maternal heart broke at the thought of the two most precious and loved people in my life, causing each other pain.