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In the Western classical music tradition, Lied ( , ; , ; ) is a term for setting poetry to music. The term is used for any kind of song in German, but among English speakers, lied is often used interchangeably with "art song" to encompass works that the tradition has inspired in other languages as well. The poems that have been made into lieder often center on pastoral themes or themes of romantic love.
The earliest Lieder date from the late fourteenth or early fifteenth centuries, and can even refer to Minnesang from as early as the 12th and 13th centuries. It later came especially to refer to settings of Romantic poetry during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and into the early twentieth century. Examples include settings by Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler or Richard Strauss.
The German word Lied for "song" (cognate with the English dialectal ) first came into general use in German during the early fifteenth century, largely displacing the earlier word gesang.
From the 15th century come three large song collections compiled in Germany: the Lochamer Liederbuch, the Schedelsches Liederbuch, and the Glogauer Liederbuch. (1984). 9780193113169, Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780193113169
The musical forces for lieder were standardized as a single singer, accompanied by a piano. The piano had only recently achieved widespread use; and its greater expressive possibilities relative to the earlier harpsichord may have played a role in advancing the composition of lieder. Usually the intended singing voice is a "high voice", in the sense that it is comfortably within the range of a soprano or a tenor. For both, the music as printed is the same; the soprano sings the notes as written, the tenor an octave lower. Lieder were also written for the lower voices: baritone/bass for men, Mezzo-soprano/alto for women. Lieder are often sung in transposition, either carried out on the spot by a skilled pianist, or through published transposed editions of the music. Transposition is a fully-accepted practice; for instance, the celebrated lieder singer Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sang a great number of songs transposed downward, to match his baritone voice.
The classical-era masters Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven all wrote lieder that are performed today, though for each of them the lied was something of a minor genre. It is in the songs of Franz Schubert that the genre came into its own. Schubert found a new balance between words and music, a new expression of the sense of the words in and through the music. In his short life (1797-1828) he wrote over 600 songs. Some examples of widely-sung lieder by Schubert are Erlkönig, Der Tod und das Mädchen ("Death and the Maiden"), Gretchen am Spinnrade, and Der Doppelgänger.
Schubert's work proved an inspiration to other composers, and songwriting in the tradition he established was continued through the 19th century, notably by Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, and Hugo Wolf. In the 20th century, the tradition was continued, most notably by Gustav Mahler, who often issued his lieder in two versions, one with the traditional piano accompaniment and one for full orchestra. Other 20th century lieder composers include Hans Pfitzner, Max Reger, Richard Strauss, Alexander Zemlinsky. Arnold Schoenberg, Alban Berg, Anton Webern, and Ernst Krenek wrote tonal, atonal, and twelve-tone Lieder.
Concerning the role of the poem in a Lied, the noted Lieder pianist Graham Johnson has written:
All songs have lyrics, but in many cases the tune comes first. With Lieder the opposite is true: the poet is often more than the composer’s equal and the poem is often a great work of art in its own right, known and loved without music.The composer’s task is to give this poem a heightened existence through their own vision and imaginative skill. The song’s melody and text are the singer’s responsibility, but it is the addition of a piano accompaniment, subtle and sometimes highly complex, that adds harmony and character to the whole. The greatest Lieder composers conjure an astonishing variety of narratives, moods and atmospheres, a synthesis of word and tone employing almost minimalist means that can take the listener’s breath away.
Performers have to be very word-aware when presenting a poem through this musical prism – a great Lied may be first and foremost an unforgettable piece of music, but the poem that breathes within the structure is its life-force.Johnson's remarks were posted on the website of the University of Melbourne in conjunction with a visit he made there: [1].
The difference between strophic and through-composed settings naturally has consequences for expression: the strophic song (widely regarded as the simpler and less sophisticated form) can only express the general feeling of the poem, whereas a through-composed setting can reflect in detail the words of each separate stanza.
The distinction between strophic and through-composed settings is a blurred one, for composers often produce settings in which the music for each stanza is the same at a general, abstract level, but is adapted in detail to the individual stanzas. Thus Beethoven's Abendlied unterm gestirnten Himmel, as described in Cooper (2001), is fundamentally a strophic song, but the music is written out for all four stanzas as Beethoven adjusts the sung music in subtle ways (and the piano part, in less subtle ways) to the content of what is being sung. Further, a through-composed song will almost always repeat some musical material, simply because repetition of thematic material is part of the ordinary language and procedure of music in general.
The singers themselves form an artistic population that is at least somewhat separated from the singers of opera (which forms a larger venue for classical singing). Thus, for example, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Elly Ameling became celebrated for their lieder singing, though they also ventured into opera from time to time. In the other direction, singers whose reputation arose in opera will sometimes venture into lieder recitals and recordings. Generally, lieder singing does not require the great volume needed to fill an opera house, but audiences expect great musical sensitivity, including close attention to the meaning of the lyrics.
The pianist Artur Schnabel, who for decades performed lieder with his wife Therese Behr, opined (in lectures from 1945) on the difference in musical culture between opera and lieder:
In public performances Lieder should be presented in intimate halls. Which successful musical performer would relinquish the biggest halls if he can fill them, and obey artistic demands if they involve sacrifices? Opera singers are rarely able to do justice to the Lied. The 'real' Lieder singer is, vice versa, not suitable for opera.Schnabel (1970:50)
Another potential source for performers of lieder is individual lay musicians, trained in piano or voice, singing in their own homes. Such musicians indeed formed much of the audience for lieder when they were first composed, and created a source of income for the lieder composer. While some lieder are very difficult to perform (the piano part of Schubert's Erlkönig is notorious in this respectSee, for instance, this link: [2], offering advice to pianists.), many lieder could be creditably performed by capable amateurs. The domestic performance of lieder declined when recordings and broadcasting led to the replacement of active by passive musical recreation. Artur Schnabel, in the lecture series quoted above, mourned the loss of the domestic lieder-singing tradition, and encouraged his audience (of young music students) to revive it, at least at the individual level.
How can you compensate for the loss of the exaltation experienced by a close association with the unique treasure of the Lied literature? I can see only one way: all who are drawn to it, who play the piano and can read music ... ought to get Schubert's (and other) songs and devote some of their free time every day to communion with them.Schnabel (1970:51)
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