Johannes Brahms’ Geistliches Leid (“Sacred Chant”) was formed during Brahms’ teenage years. It wasn’t until he was twenty-three years old that this four-part mixed chorus and organ (or piano) motet set to a seventeenth-century sacred text by Paul Flemming came to be. 

The text is a poem of trust in God’s divine will which is emphasized with the use of the organ which seeks to reflect the grandeur of God. Geistliches Leid is known for its double canon structure with a leading voice followed by another voice part in imitation at the interval of a ninth.