Johannes Brahms |Die schöne Magelone

Brahms wrote his only song cycle, Die schöne Magelone, in the 1860s. He based his work on Ludwig Tieck’s Liebesgeschichte der schönen Magelone und des Grafen Peter von Provence from 1797 and composed 15 romances on this tale. The origin of the story, however, can already be found in tales from the oriental manuscript collection Arabian Nights. Having been promised to another suitor, the daughter of the King of Naples, Magelone, falls in love with count Peter of Provence. As the two lovers escape together, Peter falls into the hands of Turkish slave traders. In the end, he manages to escape, but it is only after an odyssey of many years that he is able to embrace his beloved Magelone again.