Autograph musical quotation in the hand of the great composer, who has penned the opening three measures of his lied "Sind es Schmerzen, sind es Freuden" from "Die schöne Magelone", inscribed and signed "Johannes Brahms." From the album of Bertha Von Suttner (1843-1914), winner of the 1905 Nobel Peace Prize. In fine condition. 2.25 x 3.5 inches (9.3 x 5.6 cm).

Completed in 1869, Brahms's song cycle Die Schöne Magelone is one of the most beautiful song cycles of the romantic era and among all the wealth of Lieder that Brahms composed, it is his only real song cycle. It derives from a quasi-medieval romance, in prose and verse, by Ludwig Tieck about a Provençal knight-errant called Peter and his love for the beautiful, if initially unavailable, Magelone. The 15 poems that Brahms fashioned into “romances” are taken from Ludwig Tieck’s novella The Wondrous Romance of Magelone the Fair and Peter Count of Provence (1797). The present quotation is from the third song in the cycle, Sind es Schmerzen (Are these sorrows), where we encounter Peter in love.