Nineteenth-Century Art Song

42 Romantic Song

Key Points

• Typical romantic song structures include strophic and through-composed forms; some fall between into a modified-strophic form

• The German art song, or Lied, for solo voice and piano was a favored Romantic genre.

• Composer wrote song cycles that unified a group of songs by poem or theme.

• The poetry of the lied used themes of love and nature; the favored poets were Goethe and Heine

Types of Song Structure

• The art song met the need for intimate personal expression.

• The form came into prominence in the early decades and emerged as a favored example of the new lyricism.

• Two main song structures prevailed: strophic and through-composed.

Types of Song Structure

• Strophic form is when the same melody is repeated with every stanza, or strophe of the poem; hymns carols, as well most folk and popular songs are strophic.

• This form accommodates all the stanzas of the text.

Through-composed form

• The other song type called durchkomponiert, or through-composed form by the Germans proceeds from beginning to end, without repetitions of whole sections.

• The music follows the story line, changing according to the text; thus making it possible for the composer to mirror the shade of meaning in the words.

Modified-strophic form

• There is also an intermediate type that combines features of both.

• The same melody may re repeated for two or three stanzas, with new material introduced when the poem requires it, generally at the climax.

• This is a modified strophic form.

The Lied

• Art song was a product of the Romantic era.• The lied (lieder) is a German-texted solo vocal

song with piano accompaniment.• Among the great masters of this genre are

Schubert, Schumann, Brahms & Hugo Wolf.• Women composers who have contributed to

the genre include Fanny Mendelssohn, Clara Schumann and Amy Cheney Beach.

Lied (cont.)• Some composers wrote groups of lieder that were unified

by a narrative thread or descriptive theme, known as a song cycle.

• The rise of the lied was fuelled by the outpouring of lyric poetry that marked German Romanticism.

• Goethe and Heinrich Heine were the two leading poets who like Wordsworth, Byron, Shelley and Keats in literature favored short, personal, lyric poems; Texts ranged from tender sentiment to dramatic balladry.

• Also included universal themes of love, longing and the beauty of nature.

Popularity of the piano

• Another circumstance that popularized the Romantic art song was the emergence of the piano as the preferred household instrument.

• Piano accompaniment translated a song’s poetic images into music.

• Voice and piano together fused the short lyric form with feeling and made is suitable for amateurs and artists alike, in both the home and the concert hall.

43 Schubert and the LiedKey Points

• Franz Schubert was a gifted songwriter who composed more than 600 famous lieder and several song cycles.

• Erlking – a through-composed Lied based on a German legend set in a dramatic poem by Goethe- is one of his most famous songs.

• Schubert died young and impoverished, in part because of his bohemian lifestyle.

His Life

• Franz Schubert’s life has become a romantic symbol of the artist’s fate.

• He was not properly appreciated during his lifetime.

• He died very young, leaving the world a musical legacy of some 900 works.

His Life (cont.)

• He was born in a suburb of Vienna, the son of a schoolmaster.

• As a boy, he learned the violin from his father and piano from an elder brother.

• His beautiful soprano voice gained him admittance to the imperial chapel and school where the court singers were trained.

• He was one of the Vienna Choir Boys.• His teachers were astonished at his musicality.

His Life (cont.)

• Young Schubert tried to follow in his father’s footsteps; he was not cut out for classroom.

• He found escape by immersing himself into the lyric poetry of the budding German Romanticism.

• Everything he touched turned to song; music came to him with miraculous spontaneity.

• Erlking, set to a poem by Goethe, was written while he was still a teenager.

• The song won him immediate public recognition yet he had difficulty finding a publisher.

Virtuoso – (not!)

• Schubert was not as well known as some composers of his era (the virtuoso Paganini, who received much more attention.)

• He was appreciated by Viennese public and his reputation grew steadily.

• His music was centered in the home, in salon concerts amid a select circle of friends and acquaintances.

Later Years

• Schubert suffered deeply during his later years, largely owing to a progressive debilitation believed to from advanced stages of syphilis.

• He was often pressed for money and sold his music for much less than it was worth.

• As his youthful exuberance gave way to the maturity of a deeply emotional Romantic artist, he perceived that he had lost the struggle with life.

Winter’s Journey

• This emotional climate pervades his magnificent song cycle Winter’s Journey in which he introduced a somber lyricism to music.

• Overcoming his discouragement, he embarked on his left efforts.

• In the final year of his life, he composed a Mass in E flat, the String Quartet in C, 3 piano sonatas, (published posthumously) and 13 of his finest songs.

Dying Wish

• While he was terminally ill, he corrected the proofs of the final part of Winter’s Journey.

• His dying wish was to be buried near the master he worshipped above all others – Beethoven.

• Schubert was 31 when he died in 1828.• His wish was granted.

His Music

• Schubert’s music marks the confluence of the Classical and Romantic eras.

• His symphonies are Classical in their form; in his lieder and piano pieces he was a Romantic.

• His melodies have a tender and longing quality that match the tone of the poetry they set.

• In his chamber music, he was a direct descendent of Haydn and Mozart. His quartets, piano trios and the Trout quintet end the line of Viennese Classicism.

Other Works

• In his impromptus and other short piano pieces, the piano sings with a new lyricism.

• There are over 600 songs; many were written at breakneck speed, sometimes 5, 6 , or 7 in a single morning.

• The accompaniments are especially expressive.• The two song cycles Lovely Maid of the Mill and

Winter’s Journey, both on poems by Wilhem Muller convey impassioned feelings of love and despair.