Opera and Song Literature Research Guide: Guide for the Study of Lieder and Art Songs

German Lieder in the Nineteenth-Centuryprovides a detailed introduction to the German lied.Beginning with its origin in the literary and musical cultureof Germany in the nineteenth-century, thebookcovers individual composers, including Shubert, Schumann, Brahms, Strauss, Mahler and Wolf, the literary sources of lieder, the historical and conceptual issues of song cycles, and issues of musical technique and style in performance practice. Written by eminent music scholars in the field, each chapter includes detailed musical examples and analysis. The second edition has been revised and updated to include the most recent research of each composer and additional musical examples.

Recent American Art Song: A Guide is devoted to songs with English texts by American composers written for solo voice and piano. The book focuses exclusively on art song since 1980, a substantial period largely ignored by scholars. This is the first study to examine this repertory in detail, and many of the songs and composers are covered in print for the first time.

Several generations before Schubert, the Lied emerged as domestic entertainment destined to move beyond the home to the symphony hall. This introductory chronicle of this fascinating genre analyzes the Lied in its musical, literary, and cultural contexts--with chapters devoted to focal composers; influence of the Lied on other musical genres; use as a musical commodity and issues of performance. The volume includes a chronology and a comprehensive bibliography.

Focusing on the music of the great song composers--Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, and Strauss--Poetry Into Song offers a systematic introduction to the performance and analysis of Lieder . Part I, The Language of Poetry, provides chapters on the themes and imagery of German Romanticism and the methods of analysis for German Romantic poetry. Part II, The Language of the Performer, deals with issues of concern to performers: texture, temporality, articulation, and interpretation of notation and unusual rhythm accents and stresses. Part III provides clearly defined analytical procedures for each of four main chapters on harmony and tonality, melody and motive, rhythm and meter, and form. The concluding chapter compares different settings of the same text, and the volume ends with several appendices that offer text translations, over 40 pages of less accessible song scores, a glossary of technical terms, and a substantial bibliography. Directed toward students in both voice and theory, and toward all singers, the authors establish a framework for the analysis of song based on a process of performing, listening, and analyzing, designed to give the reader a new understanding of the reciprocal interaction between performance and analysis. Emphasizing the masterworks, the book features numerous poetic texts, as well as a core repertory of songs. Examples throughout the text demonstrate points, while end of chapter questions reinforce concepts and provide opportunities for directed analysis. While there are a variety of books on Lieder and on German Romantic poetry, none combines performance, musical analysis, textual analysis, and the interrelation between poetry and music in the systematic, thorough way of Poetry Into Song.

Viennese composer Hugo Wolf produced one of the most important song collections of the nineteenth century when he set to music fifty-three poems by the great German poet Eduard Mörike. Susan Youens reappraises this singular collaboration to shed new light on the sophisticated interplay between poetry and music in the songs. Wolf is customarily described as 'the Poet's Composer', someone who revered poetry and served it faithfully in his music. Yet, as Youens reveals, this cliché overlooks the rich terrain in which his songs are often at cross purposes with his chosen poetry. Although Wolf did much to draw the world's attention to the neglected Swabian poet, his musical interpretation of the poetry was also influenced by his own life, psychology and experiences. This book examines selected Mörike songs in detail, demonstrating that the poems and music each have their own distinctive stories which at times intersect but also diverge.