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Lied
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Lied (plural Lieder) is a German word, meaning literally "song"; among English speakers, however, the word is used primarily as a term for European classical music songs, also known as art songs. More accurately, the term perhaps is best used to describe specifically songs set to a German poem of reasonably high literary aspirations, most notably during the nineteenth century, beginning with Franz Schubert and culminating with Hugo Wolf. Typically, Lieder are arranged for a single singer and piano. Sometimes Lieder are gathered in a Liederkreis or "song cycle" — a series of songs (generally three or more) tied by a single narrative or theme. The composers Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann are most closely associated with this genre of classical music.
Contents
- 1 History
- 2 Other national traditions
- 3 Bibliography
- 4 External links
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History
For German speakers the term Lied has a long history ranging from 12th century troubadour songs (Minnesang) via folk songs (Volkslieder) and church hymns (Kirchenlieder) to 20th-century workers songs (Arbeiterlieder) or protest songs (Kabarettlieder, Protestlieder).
In
Germany, the great age of song came in the
19th century. German and
Austrian composers had written music for voice with keyboard before this time, but it was with the flowering of
German literature in the
Classical and
Romantic eras that composers found high inspiration in
poetry that sparked the genre known as the
Lied. The beginnings of this tradition are seen in the songs of
Mozart and
Beethoven, but it is with
Schubert that a new balance is found between words and music, a new absorption into the music of the sense of the words.
Schubert wrote over 600 songs, some of them in sequences or
song cycles that relate a story — adventure of the soul rather than the body. The tradition was continued by
Schumann,
Brahms, and
Hugo Wolf, and on into the
20th century by
Strauss and
Mahler. The body of song created in the
Lied tradition, like that of the
Italian madrigal three centuries before, represents one of the richest products of human sensibility.
Other national traditions
The Lied tradition is closely linked with the German language. But there are parallels elsewhere, noticeably in France, with the melodies of such composers as Berlioz, Fauré, Debussy and Francis Poulenc, and in Russia, with the songs of Mussorgsky and Rachmaninov in particular. England too had a flowering of song in the 20th century represented by Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten.
Bibliography
Hallmark, Rufus, ed.
German Lieder in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Schirmer, 1996.
Parsons, James, ed.
The Cambridge Companion to the Lied. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
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