German Art Songs in Which a Poem Is Set to Music for Piano and Voice
What is art song? A quick definition: verse set to music for classical voice and piano. Yep, there are art songs with orchestra etc., but that will do for a outset. You already know at least i art song, Brahms' Lullaby. The first poetry is taken from a drove of German folk poems chosen Des Knaben Wunderhorn; the second stanza was written by Georg Scherer (1824 – 1909) in 1849.
| Guten Abend, gut' Nacht, Mit Rosen bedacht, Mit Näglein besteckt, Schlupf unter dice Deck': Morgen früh, wenn Gott will, Wirst du wieder geweckt. Guten Abend, gute Nacht, Von Englein bewacht, Die zeigen im Traum Dir Christkindleins Baum. Schlaf nun selig und süß, Schau im Traums Paradies | Skilful evening, good night, With roses adorned, With carnations covered, Slip under the covers. Tomorrow morning, if God wants it, You will wake again. Good evening, expert dark. By angels watched, Who bear witness you in your dream The Christ-kid's tree. Sleep now peacefully and sweetly, Await in dream's paradise. |
Lotte Lehmann was renowned for her Lieder interpretations, just what does the word Lieder hateful? It means simply German art songs. Here'south art song's brief clarification: a poem fix to music, usually for trained voice and pianoforte with a elapsing of about three minutes. Other English language words are solo vocal, art-song, artsong, classical vocal, piano song etc. In High german the discussion for such classical song is Lied (singular) and Lieder (plural). Information technology is the German do to capitalize their nouns. Just this concise definition really doesn't bear on the soul of Lieder. The elements (a quartet if you like: poet, composer, singer and pianist) work together, each complimenting the other. Many scholars have suggested that really great poetry shouldn't be ready as song; it should stand on its own merits. And it is certainly truthful that epic verse is seldom prepare to music. But lyric poetry, of whatsoever language, has inspired composers right down to our own times to ready and even heighten a poem, often making it more than accessible, highlighting elements that simply music tin can. Lyric poetry tends to be short, concise, often deals with honey, nature and other elements favored by the Romantic artists of the 18th and 19th Centuries.
But though Lieder may have reached a climax in expression, appreciation and perfection during the 19th Century, fine art song is indeed withal being written, performed and recorded today. In fact, this may exist seen equally another golden age of art song performance because it has get also expensive to record operas, thus many gifted singers record fine art song recitals instead.
There is a perceived dichotomy between the "bel canto" (beautiful singing) demands of opera, particularly those of Bellini, Donizetti and Rossini, and the intimate, word-centered requirements of Lieder singing. For case, the Danish soprano Povla Frijsh (1881 – 1960) wasn't blessed with the nearly beautiful of voices, but had a successful career as a recitalist because of the subtle way she could handle the demands of songs. Hither it may be mentioned that non all opera singers are successful Lieder singers and vice versa. Let me quote J.B. Steane'due south "The Grand Tradition" where he writes of Lehmann: "She was able to a remarkable extent to sing opera with the intimacy of a Lieder vocalist, giving out a glorious stream of vocalism, yet attending imaginatively to the enunciation and coloring of the text….There surely never was an operatic creative person with more of the natural feeling for the means in which a phrase can be made meaningful and vivid, through the detailed, imaginative treat words." Taking the other direction, allow me quote the conductor Bruno Walter, often Lehmann'due south Lieder accompanist. He wrote, "Information technology was admirable how Lotte Lehmann'southward dramatic feeling, to which she had formerly been inclined to yield almost to the signal where she did violence to her voice, had gradually become restrained to fit the rendering of songs. Amazing, too, that her impetuous elemental personality should have constitute the style to the stylistic purity of the vocal past means of her own nigh infallible instinct." Thus you see that in that location are ii distinct approaches to consider: bringing word sensitivity of the Lieder vocalizer to opera, or the restraining of dramatic opera impulses for the recital stage. Lehmann accomplished both.
A few terms: song "wheel" is a grouping of songs, unremarkably by the same poet, that a composer conceives as being sung together. The so-chosen "Schwanengesang" (Swan-vocal cycle) of Schubert really wasn't meant by him to be sung together. These are just the last songs of Schubert'south life that were collected together and published nether that title. Skilful examples of song cycles that Lehmann sang are: Beethoven's "An die ferne Geliebte" (To the Distant Loved Ane); Schubert's "Die schöne Müllerin" (The Beautiful Miller Maid) and his "Winterreise" (Winter Journey). These three are most ofttimes performed by male singers, voicing their thoughts of lost or distant love; when Lehmann sings them, she seems to identify with the longing and fifty-fifty desperation which a man in such a position would feel. She is like his muse, his mouthpiece able to express thoughts that he cannot. Lehmann as well performed and recorded Schumann'south "Dichterliebe" (Poet'southward Love) and "Frauenliebe und -leben" (Woman's Honey and Life). These 2 vocal cycles are and then successful as a grouping of songs that it is unusual to hear the individual songs. "Dichterliebe" is another man's song cycle that Lehmann made very much her own. And I don't mean that she tried to sound masculine. She was able to probe the meaning of the poet and feelings that are universally applicable to males and females.
Lehmann showtime recorded "Frauenliebe und -leben" in 1928. Unfortunately for that recording it was arranged for instrumental trio and doesn't let the vocaliser the rapport that Lehmann enjoyed in performances with Bruno Walter or Paul Ulanowsky as pianists. There are fine recordings of all these performances available on CD. (See the Complete CD List). There is a definite story line here, from the innocent young girl who commencement sees the homo of her dreams, through motherhood and finally the expiry of her beloved married man. Lehmann is able throughout this bicycle to focus on the moment in the story and however keep the feeling of the whole narrative live. One moment in the terminal song stands out as especially poignant, when she sings "der Schleier fällt" (the veil falls) it seems as if she might not be able to finish the song. It is drama like this, taken perhaps from her well-developed stage interim techniques, that enabled Lehmann to breathe existent life into such songs.
Another term that ane encounters in the field of art song or Lieder is: accompanist. Usually that is a pianist. And there is the perception that the pianist is only a voice in the background to support the vocalizer. In good art vocal this isn't the case: the composer expects a duet of sorts betwixt the piano and vocalization. The pianist does provide the chordal significance of the sung melody, merely there is an interplay betwixt the singer and pianist on many levels. The pianist may gear up the scene (as in an introductory department) or compliment on the piano what the singer does with the voice. Robert Schumann likewise used extensive postludes to sum up the idea of the poem. By the careful use of dynamics (loud and soft) the pianist tin focus attention on dramatic moments or the intimate ones. The pianist (accompanist) must know the words of the poetry as well as the singer's notes. (We'll assume the pianist has learned his/her notes!). Sometimes the composer's point of view towards the poetry is expressed in the piano office. Often elements of nature (h2o, storms, wind etc.) are written into the pianoforte music.
Lehmann worked mainly with four pianists: Ernö Balogh, Paul Ulanowsky, Bruno Walter (most famous as a conductor) and Gwendolyn Koldofsky. There are recordings available of each of these cooperative ventures. Though these pianists were art song specialists, early on recording techniques allowed only one horn or one microphone to pick up the two artists and the true duet between the artists has been macerated. The horn or microphone was placed most the vocaliser and thus the piano tin can sound like a light tinkling in the background of many Lehmann and other early recordings. Only one thing you lot can hear in these erstwhile recordings: Lehmann frequently used rubato (the speeding up and slowing down inside a phrase) which all her accompanists learned to anticipate.
Allow's look specifically at Lehmann's art song career. She began singing recitals in Hamburg and Vienna, and was shortly invited to sing recitals during the Salzburg Festivals. But her Lieder recordings made in Germany were often marred by salon orchestra accompaniments, poorly played. There is beauty, a existent bloom and freshness, in Lehmann'southward phonation in the 1920's and 1930's and close attending to the recordings (mentally filtering out the corny accompaniments) will be repaid past the enjoyment her tone color painting of the poetry and her obvious love of the music. She was a poet herself, which you tin can read on this site. Few singers have such a deep understanding of the overall meaning of the poems they sing, as well as the ability to color the individual words with the feeling inherent in them.
There was a kind of renaissance of Lieder singing in the 1930'southward. Lehmann was in the august company of other Lieder performers such as Elisabeth Schumann, Heinrich Schlusnus, Tiana Lemnitz, Gerhardt Hüsch, Elena Gerhardt, Karl Erb, Alexander Kipnis, and Lula Mysz-Gmeiner. Though many of these singers are near forgotten today, their recordings deserve careful listening.
Returning to Lehmann'south Lieder career, it is interesting to notation that abroad from Germany and Republic of austria, her American recordings finally became that combination of piano and vocalisation that composers had in mind when they wrote their songs. Though there was still only one microphone, and this placed shut to Lehmann, the creative result is far more satisfying. In the Discography you'll exist able to trace the diverse Lieder recordings that Lehmann made and hear the definite artistic growth.
Lehmann spoke of having been blessed with three careers. They overlapped: during her first career in opera she early on began performing and recording songs. After her retirement from opera she concentrated on song and began pedagogy. Finally, after her farewell appearances in 1951, she stopped singing and only taught. (For more information on Lehmann biographical matters, click on the bios). In the US Lehmann'southward fame after the WW II was as a Lieder performer. (Actually during the war, she continued to sing German language Lieder, which she herself found remarkable. Even at state of war with Germany, Americans recognized the value of this music and didn't forestall it. Of course, Lehmann also had the advantage of her anti-Nazi stance).
Lehmann'southward active touring career in the mid to late 1940's compelled her to broaden the range of her repertory. She included French "mélodie" (the parallel discussion for Lieder), English language and American songs. Lehmann possessed a natural feeling for French composers and the language. Her spoken English always had a mannerly, strong emphasis and then it is understandable that her sung English language was less successful. But she definitely knew what the words meant, equally 1 can hear in her recording of Haydn's "She Never Told Her Honey" or Irving Berlin'due south "God Bless America". When Lehmann sings the word "God", the word is strongly and appropriately shaded.
By the time that Lehmann sang her farewell recitals (first in New York City and finally in Santa Barbara and Pasadena) her reputation as a Lieder specialist was without rival in the Us. She hadn't returned to sing in Europe afterward the state of war, then her fame at that place faded a bit. The recordings of two bye recitals reward attentive listening. All the elements that make for good a Lieder recital are nowadays: even at the age of 63 Lehmann's vocalization is however beautiful, if darker; Lehmann knew how to construct a plan that included diversity, well-known and lesser-known songs; her diction was swell; there's obvious charisma with the audition that came from her consummate identification with every song she chose; her joy in singing is obvious even on the less than optimal recording circumstances; in that location is complete dominance in what she does. There were limitations in jiff control and range, simply as one commentator put it, to point out such things was the akin to noting that the Venus de Milo has no arms. 1 overlooks the vocal-technical limitations when Lehmann's belatedly Lieder recordings touch us so deeply with their emotional significant; the give-and-take painting is clear and the feelings of the poet and composer palpable.
At the beginning of this essay on Lieder I mentioned the quartet aspect: first the poet that inspires the composer; the resulting Lied is interpreted by a singer and pianist. The best Lieder singers present a synthesis which at the same time draws no attention to the art involved. The goal is directly advice of tone and discussion at the same moment.
Source: https://lottelehmannleague.org/art-song-terms/