Finding the connection: Hafez -Daumer -Brahms

The intention of this treatise is to trace the original source for Johannes Brahms' (1833–1897) lieder from the poetry of the fourteenth century poet Mohammad Shams od-Din Hafez (ca. 1320–ca. 1390) through the free renderings of Georg Friedrich Daumer (1800–1875), and to provide a musical and poetic analysis of the seven Daumer/Hafez Brahms settings. Mohammad Shams od-Din, or Hafez (ca. 1320–1393) has been proclaimed as the finest writer of Persian lyrical poetry. Throughout the centuries his poetry has been associated with mysticism, propheticism, and politics. It embodies many of the characteristics found in German Romanticism—love, death, beauty, glory, the yearning and complaining soul, and nature. The complex multi-colored imagery contained in his work lends itself well to nineteenth-century German lieder. The highly pattered ghazal form Hafez is credited with perfecting served as a magnet for German poets. Georg Friedrich Daumer was one of many German poets drawn to the work of Hafez. There is a great deal of skepticism concerning Daumer's claim of authentic translation of Hafez's poetry. It has been suggested that Daumer used translations for his own work provided earlier by German orientalists. Nevertheless, Brahms found great inspiration in the poetry of Daumer. Though Brahms was often criticized for not respecting the choice of poetry he set to music, he set nineteen of Daumer's poems, but only seven of the Hafez translations. The primary focus of this research is to try and discern which of Hafez's ghazals Daumer used as models for his compositions.