Lullaby

Few melodies in Western music have achieved such complete saturation of the collective unconscious. Brahms composed this lullaby for a friend's newborn, setting a simple folk-inflected text to a rocking triple-meter accompaniment of almost hypnotic regularity. The melodic profile descends gently, as lullabies must — gravity as musical metaphor for sleep. What distinguishes Brahms's setting from imitation is its harmonic warmth: brief touches of chromaticism that soften the edges, a sense of the whole piece being wrapped in something soft. The production (in its orchestral arrangements) is invariably tender — muted strings, gentle woodwinds, nothing that might startle. It belongs to the universal repertoire of childhood and therefore carries an enormous freight of personal memory for nearly every listener. There is almost no way to hear it with neutral ears. It is music that functions below the level of aesthetic judgment, operating directly on emotional memory.