The seven songs of Brahms’s Marienlieder Op. 22 sit somewhere between the composer’s corpora of secular part-songs and sacred motets. These are Brahms’s first published a cappella works (1862) and are said to have been originally conceived for women’s chorus. The first, Der englische Gruß, is sourced from folklorist and folk-song collector Anton Wilhelm von Zuccalmaglio. The texts for nos. 2–6 are sourced from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, three volumes of German folk poems and songs edited by two leading figures of German Romanticism, Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano.

Der englische Gruß and Der Jäger recount the Annunciation; Marias Kirchgang and Marias Wallfahrt, fanciful journeys of Mary. Ruf zur Maria is a prayer, and Marias Lob, a paean. Magdalena relates to a different Mary, Mary Magdalene, and her visit to the tomb of Jesus on Easter Day.

The settings are mostly strophic and texturally simple, although the first five show elements of elaboration and variation