Lied
A setting of a lyrical (or dramatic) poem in
German, usually for voice and piano.
[Example 1: Schubert, Rastlose Liebe, Jan de Gaetani recording, track 2]
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Fig. 1: Schubert (piano) and singer
J.M.Vogl (to his left) at a musical evening |
A Lied is a setting of a lyrical poem in German, usually for voice and piano. Lieder (the plural form) had been improvised or written down from as early as the Middle Ages, but the Lied as an art form began to flourish around 1800 in Germany and Austria. Although art songs were written in other countries, including France and England, the Lied retained a special quality because of its growth from the movement known as German Romanticism. Romanticism stressed the subjective, the intimate, and the small-scale, and also forged close links between literature and music.
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Fig. 2: Poet J.W. von Goethe
pictured in an idealized landscape: repr.
Schubert's Songs to Texts by
Goethe(Dover, 1979), cover |
The first great composer of Lieder was Franz Schubert (1797-1828), who wrote over 600 works in the genre. Schubert's Lieder are distinguished by the high quality of the poetry and by the fusion of music and text into a complete whole. Schubert set over 75 texts by the greatest poet of his time, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832).
One of Schubert's most famous Goethe Lieder is "The Little Rose on the Heath" ("Heidenröslein," 1815), a lyric about a boy who seeks to pluck a rose, which resists and pricks him with its thorns. The rose acts in vain, for the boy succeeds in his quest. Although the erotic symbolism is clear, the poem is presented in folklike simplicity, which Schubert captures in his setting.
This song is in a strophic form: each of the three verses is set to the same block of music. In Schubert's original manuscript we can see that he put the text for the first strophe under the melody, then at the bottom of the page wrote out only the words for the other two stanzas.
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Fig 3: Schubert: "Little Rose on
the Heath": autograph MS |
Schubert's melody is tuneful and regular--almost like a folksong--and the piano accompaniment is minimal. As is characteristic of many Lieder, however, the piano seems to "comment" on the poem with its spiky little interludes in between the strophes. The piano conveys something of the boy's aggression.
[Example 2: First stanza of Heidenröslein] [text]
Dramatic Lied (Ballad)
A very different kind of Lied from "The Little Rose on the Heath" is represented by Schubert's setting of Goethe's poem "The Elfking" (Erlkönig; 1815). This text is a ballad, which is a longer poem that tells a dramatic story. A sick boy is being carried by his father on a terrifying nighttime horse ride. In his delirium the boy believes he is being enticed away by the Elfking, who spins beautiful tunes. The father doesn't believe in the Elfking, whose melodies he dismisses as the rustling of the leaves. As the horse reaches the house, the child is dead in his father's arms.
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Fig 4: "The Elfking": illustr. J.S.
von Carolsfeld (c1830) Joachim Blauel/Artothek |
As befits the ongoing story, Schubert's setting is not strophic, but through-composed: each of the eight stanzas of the poem are set to different music. Schubert writes distinct melodies, and in different styles, for each of the four implied voices: the narrator [Example 3a] [text], the father [Example 3b], the child [Example 3c], and the Elfking [Example 3d]. There is some musical recurrence, as in the setting of the cries of the feverish child ("My father, my father") in stanzas 4, 5, and 6 [Example 3e] These small returns do not, however, make the songs strophic; rather, they are woven into the continuous musical fabric and add an element of coherence. The principal element of unity, though, is provided by the piano accompaniment, whose unceasing triplet rhythms seem to represent the galloping of the horse and continue throughout the song in many different transformations [Example 3f].
Orchestral Lied; Humorous Lied
Lieder can also be accompanied by a symphony orchestra, as in some songs from the later nineteenth century by Gustav Mahler (1860-1911). In Mahler's "Reveille" (Revelge), set to a folk text from the early Romantic anthology The Youth's Magic Horn (Des Knaben Wunderhorn), the orchestra creates many vivid, harrowing effects. The orchestra plays a grim and dissonant military march, complete with snare drum rolls, while the singer bitterly bemoans the harsh life of a soldier.
[Example 4: Mahler: "Reveille," first stanza] [text]
Not all Lieder are as grim as Erlkönig or Revelge. The composer Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) set a wickedly humorous poem, "Farewell" ("Abschied") by Eduard Mörike, that seems to poke fun at pompous critics of the arts. A man enters a home and announces to the startled resident, "I have the honor to be your critic!" [Example 5a] [text]. After the critic ruthlessly and gratuitously denigrates the shape of the man's nose [Example 5b], his host takes pleasure in booting him down the stairs, a moment that Wolf captures with an exuberant waltz [Example 5c].
Collections; Song cycles
Romantic Lieder were sometimes grouped by composers into larger collections of songs--as many as thirty, or as few as three--usually based on the work of single poet. When such a group had a sense of continuity or a common thread, it was called a "song cycle." Among the most famous song cycles are Schubert's Winter's Journey (Winterreise) and Schumann's Poet's Love (Dichterliebe).
One example of a Lied from a late song cycle, written in a very different style from Schubert, Wolf or Mahler is "Groves in these Paradises" ("Hain in diesen Paradiesen"). This is the second number in the great cycle The Book of the Hanging Gardens (Das Buch der hängenden Gärten), composed by Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) in 1908-09 to poetry by one of the leading poets of the day, Stefan George (1868-1933). The speaker is a prince who awaits his beloved in a luxuriant palace garden. The poetry is almost abstract because it has no action, but is densely packed with images of natural and man-made beauty. Schoenberg's music is atonal; that is, it has no fixed key or set of key relationships. This style is a musical equivalent of the abstract poetry. The song is entirely through-composed. In this Lied, the style of singing is declamatory rather than tuneful, and the piano accompaniment is at first very bare. Yet the gestures and the mood are very romantic in spirit.
[Example 6: Schoenberg: "Groves in these Paradises"] [text]
Summary:
- A Lied is a work for piano and voice based on a lyric or dramatic poem of high quality.
- Poetry and music are closely interwoven in the voice part.
- The piano accompaniment plays an important role, capturing the mood of the poem or representing one or more of its main images.
- Less frequently, the Lied is accompanied by a symphony orchestra.
- Songs with a common thread can be grouped together to form a "song cycle."
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Visual & Sound Materials from the Gabe M. Wiener Music & Arts Library of Columbia University | |
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Lied written by:
Walter Frisch Recording & Mixing: Bradford Garton & Terry Pender |
Narration:
Thomas Payne Technology & Design: Maurice Matiz |