The German Art Song

1
The German Art Song

• Lieder

2
The Lied (Lieder)

• Lied is the German for Song
• One of the most important miniature genres in
  the Romantic Era
• Nearly Always accompanied by the Piano
• Texts taken from Romantic Poets like
• Goethe, Müller, Heine ect

3
Form in Lieder

• Most lieder can be classified with three
  different formal structures
• Strophic
• Through-Composed (durchkomponiert)
• Modified Strophic

4
Forms in Lieder

• Strophic
• Where each stanza of poetry uses the same music
• (A, A, A, A, A)
• Through-Composed
• Where each stanza of poetry uses fresh or
  different music
• (A, B, C, D ..)
• Modified Strophic
• Where MOST stanzas of poetry uses the same music
  and perhaps the crux or climatic point of the
  poem would have different music
• (A, A, A, B, A)

5
Schubert Erlkönig (The Erlking)

• Form Through-Composed
• Characters
• Narrator (Medium Range)
• Father (Low Range comforting, reassuring
• Boy (High Range) Frightened, Frantic
• Erlking (Medium Range) Ominously sweet
• Horse (Piano) Galloping

6
Schumann Dichterliebe

• A Song Cycle
• A collection of short poems which are grouped
  together as part of a common theme into separate
  songs
• Extended the rather fragile expression of the
  lied into a larger, more comprehensive, and hence
  more impressive unit (Listen, p. 253)

7
Schumann Dichterliebe

• Im wunderschönen Monat Mai (In the wonderfully
  lovely month of May)
• Strophic (two stanzas, the same music for each)
• Note Piano introduction and postlude style
  features of Schumanns lieder
• Die Alten, bösen Lieder (The hateful songs of
  times past)
• Through-composed with some repetition

8
Clara Schumann

• Der Mond kommt still gegangen
• Modified Strophic (Final stanza has major
  modifications to the first two stanzas a
  heightened expression ensues.

9
Conclusions about Lieder

• The lied, a type of miniature work, does not
  rely on elaborate musical forms. Songs juxtapose
  two levels of meaning verbal and musical.
  Musical form usually follows structure of the
  poem, with the composer left to evoke the
  emotional world of the poem in musical terms.
• Song cycles grouped songs that told a story or
  dealt with similar themes. These works permitted
  composers to probe subjects and emotions in
  greater depth, yet retain the intimacy of the
  solo song.