One may say that the cycle of chorale preludes that appeared at the end of Brahms' life is an autobiographical work. It is no coincidence that it combines themes of suffering and death. Brahms experienced the loss of many dear ones from 1892 on: first his sister passed away, then Elisabeth von Herzogenberg was gone. Within three months of 1894, he lost three of his oldest friends – Philipp Spitta, Hans von Bülow and Theodor Billroth. The death of Clara Schumann in May 1896 was probably the hardest blow. Around the same time, he began to show the first signs of what was possibly progressive liver carcinoma, from which he died a year later.

In that difficult time of his life, he again turned to the organ, with which the emotional experiences of his youth were associated, and to the Protestant chorale, in which Brahms looked for spiritual strength. The very fact of writing these pieces refers to Bach's Great 18 Chorale Preludes. Brahms deliberately likened his work to the Bach chorales, not only the Leipzig ones. They can be seen in the use of the chorale Herzlich tut mich verlangen ('I do desire dearly'), which was included in many of Bach's cantatas, the St. Matthew Passion and Christmas Oratorio. It is highly symbolic here that Brahms actually renders verbatim with semiquavers the initial motif from Bach's chorale Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ, BWV 639 in the accompanying counterpoint. Just like Bach, who completed his earthly journey with the chorale Vor deinen Thron tret' ich hiermit ('Before Thy throne I now appear'), Brahms says farewell to the world with the chorale O Welt, ich muss dich lassen ('O world, I now must leave thee').

The form of most of the preludes, the type of arrangement, sees continuous development of the chorale melody, and an allusion of using musical-rhetorical figures in the counterpoint, which is quite reminiscent of Bach's model used in the Little Organ Book (Nos. 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 9). However, several more detailed preludes, with their extraction of the accompanying voices from the melody (mainly found in Nos. 1, 7 and 10, but also in some little fragments of Nos. 3 and 5 as well) also inherit more complex ways as to how a chorale can be treated (more typical for the 'Leipzig Chorales'): No. 1 is executed as a fugue upon a chorale, No. 7 is a chorale with interludes, and Nos. 1 and 10 have a chorale as a cantus firmus in the lower voice. Each phrase is present twice in chorale No. 4: with no pedal in the quieter version and with the pedal in the louder one. This could be a reflection of responsory singing, or even a choral formula of soloist/ensemble alternation, which is closer to Brahms. The eleventh chorale is entirely built on the double echo effect.

The group of three preludes – No. 1. Mein Jesu, der du mich zum Lustspiel ewiglich ('My Jesus calls to me, holds out eternal bliss'), No. 5. Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele ('Deck thyself, my soul'), and No. 2. Herzliebster Jesu, was hast du verbrochen ('O blessed Jesus, how hast Thou offended') – was composed first with the indication on the last page 'Ischl. | Mai 96' (after Clara's funeral, Brahms played several preludes, including Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele, for a small number of people). Then Brahms expanded the cycle to seven preludes, adding No. 6. O wie selig seid ihr doch, ihr Frommen ('Blessed are ye faithful souls'), No. 7. O Gott, du frommer Gott ('O God, Thou faithful God'), No. 3. O Welt, ich muss dich lassen ('O world, I now must leave thee') and No. 4. Herzlich tut mich erfreuen ('My faithful heart rejoices'), on which he also indicated 'Ischl. | Mai 96.' He entrusted the autographs to his copyist William Kupfer without pre-numbering the preludes. After an exchange of letters, the order of the preludes changed, and it is not known for certain what could have influenced that decision. However, they are present in the cycle in this particular order framed by larger preludes at the beginning and at the end. The figure of seven that symbolises completeness and perfection in the Christian faith also indirectly indicates the end of the cycle (it is worth recalling that two years earlier Brahms published a cycle of forty-nine German folk songs in seven volumes, each comprising seven songs).

The remaining four preludes were probably written in June 1896. It is not known whether Brahms wanted to compose another series of seven preludes or make them standalone pieces. Perhaps, after he received the news of Clara Schumann's passing, he could not help but respond to it by arranging the only Christmas chorale from the cycle, the heart-warming Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen ('Behold, a rose is blooming'), a hymn to the Virgin Mary. Brahms colours the melody of the chorale only once, putting it in the upper voice and accompanying it with a song texture, which, together with the emphatically lyrical intonation and atmosphere of the piece, is reminiscent of the tradition of the German Lied.

The choice of two more chorales – Nos. 9 and 10, Herzlich tut mich verlangen ('I do desire dearly), and No. 11. O Welt, ich muss dich lassen ('O world, I now must leave thee') – is certainly connected with the knowledge of the approaching end. While the former conjures up associations of the composer's painful farewell to the earthly world, the latter, like the last communion, solemnly opens the gates of the Kingdom of Heaven before him. It is in this chorale where Brahms again turns his thoughts to Clara, placing the intonation of the coloured Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen as an opposition. Even the coinciding 'F-dur' key is not accidental: when Brahms was young, his motto was 'frei, aber einsam' ('Free, but Alone'), the initialism of which (F–A–E) became the intonational source and tonal plan of many compositions. Now, in the firmament, he was really free and hardly alone any more.

Writers: Olga Ardeleanu, Dmitry Lotov, Alexander Baranyuk and Konstantin Volostnov
Translated by: Nikolai Kuznetsov