Brahms was one of the great masters of Romantic choral music: not only did he sense how to create a good sound with the human voice, but through the choirs he himself conducted he gained great experience and skill in vocal composition. Alongside large-scale choral works for large forces he also composed a capella pieces to poems by contemporary poets (Rückert and Goethe, for instance), and to the words of German folk songs. Six of these works were selected and translated into Hungarian by Dr. Károly Vargha (1914-1993), who also translated the German texts of several great composers such as Bach, Haydn, and Händel.

These six works for mixed choir are published here in two books, edited by Lajos Bárdos.