Brahms' Rhapsody, Op. 53, is composed to a fragment--set also by J. F. Reichhardt (1752-1814)--from Goethe's 'Harzreise im Winter,' which has for its subject the poet's reflections on a visit paid by him to a young hypochondriac whose melancholy had, as he feared, been confirmed by the influence of his own 'Werther's Sorrows.' Goethe's efforts to raise the youth from his state of mental depression had no immediate visible result, though he ultimately recovered from his malady, and the three verses selected from the poem for musical composition conclude with a prayer to the Father of love on his behalf. Such a text was eminently suited for musical expression by a composer who, intensely realizing the problems of life, shaped his course by faith in the power of love; and the Rhapsody furnishes another striking illustration of the strength of imagination which enabled Brahms so to absorb himself in his text as to be able to present it in musical sound--to capable listeners--with a strength and reality usually associated only with impressions of sight. Let anyone who is familiar with the composition read through Goethe's poem from beginning to end, and note the accession of force with which the verses set to music by Brahms come home to him. He will be reminded of an object illuminated by sunlight that stands near others placed in shadow. The first of the three sections of the single movement that constitutes the Rhapsody, an impressive orchestral picture upon which the independent recitative of the solo voice enters, may be accepted as the reflection of the poet's intense realization of the unhappy youth's condition. Its tones convey a penetrating impression of rich warmth and pity lying behind the deepest gloom. The feeling of the second section is no less concentrated, though it is expressed with more calm: 'Ah! how comfort his sorrows Who in balsam found poison? Who from the fulness of love Hath drunk but the hate of men? Once despised, now a despiser, Secretly he consumeth All his own best worth In fruitless self-seeking.' The noble declamatory passages of the voice are supported by an accompaniment that becomes agitated or intensely still in accord with the course of the poet's self-questionings, which reach their only possible and beautiful resolution in the third section: 'If thy Psalt'ry containeth, Father of love, one tone That can reach his ear, Oh, refresh his heart! Open his obscurèd sight To the thousand sources Near to the thirsty one In the desert.' Here, by a fine inspiration, the chorus of men's voices enters for the first time _pianissimo_, supporting the solo voice in fervent supplication.