MUSC 220

HISTORY OF MUSIC III

 LIED

“ART SONG”
 LIED

“ART SONG”
?
 LIED

Volkstümlichkeit
(Folk-like)
German States,
ca. 1789
 Is there a unifying element of German culture and society?

LANGUAGE

• Language can only be learned socially, that is by being

part of a community
• Language is the natural definer of a community
• Language is essential to thought as well: one thinks
only what one can express linguistically. Thus, there can
be no thought without language
• Each language community has its own characteristic
Johann Gottfried Herder mode of thought and “essential personality”
(1744-1803) • Each language manifests unique values and ideals and
each provides a different contribution to world
diversity
 FOLKLORE

• Before Herder, folklore was associated chiefly with artistic

manifestations of low intellectual prestige from the uncultivated strata
of society

• After Herder it becomes the essential feature of collective “spirit,” and

used as a yardstick to measure the degree of authenticity of cultural
products
Johann Wolfgang Goethe
(1749-1832)
Portrait by Joseph Karl Stieler (1828)
• Goethe promoted the creation of a literary
body as the foundation of German national
consciousness

• He approved of (and engaged with) the

writing of poetry that, albeit an original
artistic creation, was supposed to be folk-like

• The best way to “read” poetry was to set it to

music and perform it: Goethe’s folk-like
poems become texts for songs

• Through Goethe, folk-like poems and songs

became part of high-brow culture (they
became proper “art”)
 LIED

“ART SONG”
German folk-like art poetry came in two main types:

• LYRIC: describes a feeling or an emotional state

Often presents a refrain (a line or stanza repeated at intervals)

• NARRATIVE: tells a story

When set to music, these two kinds of poetry corresponded to:

• STROPHIC FORM: each stanza is sung on the same melody

German folk-like art poetry came in two main types:

• LYRIC: describes a feeling or an emotional state

Often presents a refrain (a line or stanza repeated at intervals)

• NARRATIVE: tells a story

When set to music, these two kinds of poetry corresponded to:

• STROPHIC FORM: each stanza is sung on the same melody

• THROUGH-COMPOSED FORM: music “flows” uninterruptedly from

one stanza to the next
Gretchen am Spinnrade: 1814
Erlkönig: 1815

Beethoven, An die ferne Geliebte: 1816

 WHAT MADE SCHUBERT SO FOND OF THE LIED?

• He lived at a time that saw the rapid growth of bourgeois domestic music-
making, which created the conditions for the unprecedented expansion of the
market of printed music for domestic performance

• He himself was at the centre of domestic music-making culture (Schubertiades)

 WHAT MADE SCHUBERT SO FOND OF THE LIED?

• He lived at a time that saw the rapid growth of bourgeois domestic music-
making which created the conditions for the unprecedented expansion of the
market of printed music for domestic performance

• He himself was at the centre of this domestic music-making culture

(Schubertiades)

• He was an avid reader of poetry, a passion that he nourished throughout his

life:
 over 600 Lieder in the time span of seventeen years
 texts by ca. 150 poets of both well renowned artists (Schiller, Goethe,
Heine, Rückert) and of his own friends or minor artists (Müller) as long as
the subject matter resonated powerfully with Schubert’s own sensitivity,
and the poetry lent itself to be set to music

• He deeply admired Goethe and was very much influenced by his idea of
“reading” poetry by setting it to music
 Gretchen am Spinnrade (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel)

Text from Goethe’s dramatic poem Faust

The song portrays the female protagonist of the poem at the spinning wheel
recalling her first encounter with Faust and being utterly troubled at the
recollection of their first kiss

The music is pervasively uncanny throughout the Lied, and points towards the
tragic outcome of the illegitimate relationship between Faust and Gretchen

Schubert relies on his listener’s knowledge of the poem—he can allude to the most
titillating aspects of the episode without addressing them directly  IMPORTANCE
OF THE READING CULTURE OF THE TIME

Schubert’s first published Lied (1821, composed in 1814)

Over the previous two years Schubert had written over 100 Lieder
MODIFIED STROPHIC
FORM
Meine Ruh’ ist hin, My peace is gone, Und küssen ihn, And kiss him
Mein Herz ist schwer, My heart is heavy; So wie ich wollt, All I wanted,
Ich finde sie nimmer I’ll never find peace, An seinen Küssen In his kisses
Und nimmermehr. Never again. Vergehen sollt! I would be lost!
Wo ich ihn nicht hab Where I do not have him
Ist mir das Grab, Is to me like a tomb.
Die ganze Welt The whole world
Ist mir vergällt. Is bitter to me.
Mein armer Kopf My poor head
Ist mir verrückt, Is confused
Mein armer Sinn My poor mind
Ist mir zerstückt. Is torn apart.
Nach ihm nur schau ich For him alone do I look
Zum Fenster hinaus, Out the window.
Nach ihm nur geh ich For him alone do I go
Aus dem Haus. Out of the house.
Sein hoher Gang, His lofty bearing,
Sein’ edle Gestalt, His noble figure,
Seine Mundes Lächeln, The smile on his lips,
Seiner Augen Gewalt, The strength of his gaze,
Und seiner Rede And his conversation’s
Zauberfluß, Magic flow,
Sein Händedruck, The press of his hand,
Und ach, sein Kuß! And, ah, his kiss!
Mein Busen drängt sich My heart pines
Nach ihm hin. For him.
Ach dürft ich fassen Ah, if I could seize him
Und halten ihn, And hold him
Meine Ruh’ ist hin, My peace is gone, Meine Ruh’ ist hin, My peace is gone,
Mein Herz ist schwer, My heart is heavy; Mein Herz ist schwer, My heart is heavy;
Ich finde sie nimmer I’ll never find peace, Ich finde sie nimmer I’ll never find peace,
Und nimmermehr. Never again. Und nimmermehr. Never again.
Wo ich ihn nicht hab Where I do not have him Mein Busen drängt sich My heart pines
Ist mir das Grab, Is to me like a tomb. Nach ihm hin. For him.
Die ganze Welt The whole world Ach dürft ich fassen Ah, if I could seize him
Ist mir vergällt. Is bitter to me. Und halten ihn, And hold him
Mein armer Kopf My poor head Und küssen ihn, And kiss him
Ist mir verrückt, Is confused So wie ich wollt, All I wanted,
Mein armer Sinn My poor mind An seinen Küssen In his kisses
Ist mir zerstückt. Is torn apart. Vergehen sollt! I would be lost!
Meine Ruh’ ist hin, My peace is gone, Meine Ruh’ ist hin, Meine Ruh’ ist hin,
Mein Herz ist schwer, My heart is heavy; Mein Herz ist schwer. Mein Herz ist schwer.
Ich finde sie nimmer I’ll never find peace,
Und nimmermehr. Never again.
Nach ihm nur schau ich For him alone do I look
Zum Fenster hinaus, Out the window.
Nach ihm nur geh ich For him alone do I go
Aus dem Haus. Out of the house.
Sein hoher Gang, His lofty bearing,
Sein’ edle Gestalt, His noble figure,
Seine Mundes Lächeln, The smile on his lips,
Seiner Augen Gewalt, The strength of his gaze,
Und seiner Rede And his conversation’s
Zauberfluß, Magic flow,
Sein Händedruck, The press of his hand,
Und ach, sein Kuß! And, ah, his kiss!
 a minor e minor

d minor

Towards C major (?) F [major or minor?]

?

V - I

d minor
 A-flat major B-flat major

D minor: vi#6

* *
Oscillation between a minor #vii7

and F major: Gretchen recalls seeing Faust for the first time
V I

…and his physical attractiveness: Harmonic intensification: G

minor
 MUSC 220
HISTORY OF MUSIC III
 GENERAL TRAITS OF SCHUBERT’S SONGS

• Use of onomatopoeic figurations (often in the piano

part): their end is generally not exclusively pictorial or
descriptive, but they serve to create a connection
between external phenomena cited in the poetic text and
the emotional state of the poetic self or a general mood
• Piano part often based on patterns that exploit the
repetition of a single figuration
• Harmonic language exploiting adventurous tonal
patterns: juxtaposition of areas related by third (median
relationships), and of parallel major and minor keys (ie.
sharing the same tonic)
• Close correlation between music and poetry: both the
larger architecture of the piece and the smaller details
of the text setting closely reflect Schubert’s reading (and
understanding) of the poetry
 SONG CYCLE
• Collection of songs that exhibits some kind of cohesiveness—musical, narrative, or conceptual (not all song
cycles are narrative in nature!);
• Individual songs convey a partiular facet of the whole; they could be experienced as single pieces, but their
full meaning could be captured only in the context of the entire cycle
• Interplay between the pretended artlessness of the individual song (its reaching back to the aesthetic of
Volkstümlichkeit) and the artfulness that the cycle as a whole should display
• Mixed genre: it combined the lyrical and narrative dimensions of traditional individual songs
Song cycles were the result of new forms of sociability

Liederkreis: originally a social institution in early nineteenth-

century Germany. The term indicated a social circle dedicated to
the performance of songs and poems, and the playing of party
games related to those songs.

The most important of such games was to come up with a unified

theme for the soirée:
• Songs by a single composers (like a Schubertiade)
• Songs setting text by a single poet
• Songs related to a single subject or character

Some of these soirées could also entail the performance of plays

interspersed with songs (Liederspiel), which is allegedly the
precursor of the narrative song cycle

Starting from the mid-1810s, publications of songs were specifically

targeted on attendees of Liederkreise, and comprised groups of
songs unified by some kind of thematic link, the «song cycle.»
 Die schöne Müllerin (The Fair Mill-Maiden, 1823)
Winterreise (The Winter Journey, 1827)

• Text by Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827)

• Based upon the Romantic character of the Wanderer

• Individual who travels endlessly to search himself outside the norms of society and is
doomed to failure

• In Die schöne Müllerin, the Wanderer falls in love with the daughter of a mill’s owner. She
initially returns his love, but then rejects him for a hunter. The Wanderer passes by the brook
by which he and his beloved sat in the happy times of their love. The Wanderer hears the
brook inviting him to sleep in its arms. The cycle closes with a lullaby the brook sings to the
Wanderer.

• In Winterreise, the Wanderer flies away from the village of his beloved, who has turned him
down, and embarks on a winter journey filled with bittersweet memories

• Natural elements become the external manifestations of his grief

 1. unity of a piece is grounded
more in the subtle and ever-
changing relationships
between its constituent parts
(motives, harmony, rhythms)
rather than its outer and clear-
cut form

2. Pivotal aspect of Romantic

ORGANICISM aesthetics: the “essence” of an

artwork lies in how its core
elements evolve and grow, not
in their formal disposition or
variety

3. Goethe: forefather of the idea

of organicism. For him, a work
of art is like a plant, whose
parts need to grow out of a
common source
 Schwanengesang (Swan Song)

• Texts by Heinrich Heine (6), Ludwig Rellstab (7), and Johann Gabriel Seidl (1)

• Published posthumously in 1829

• No clear unifying element

• Schubert had offered the songs on texts by Heinrich Heine for publication (so they probably
constituted a micro-cycle)

• The collection was put together and provided with a title by Schubert’s publisher, Tomas
Hanslinger

• It contains what is probably Schubert’s last song (the only one on a text by Seidl)

• Beyond promotional purposes, there is no evidence that Schubert ever considered this cycle
to be his last musical word. The the publication of these songs as a collection may simply be
the result of Hanslinger’s marketing strategy.
 ROMANTICISM

Classicism vs. Romanticism

Classic Art: «objectively» beautiful,

formally clear, and belonging to a
clearly categorizable genre

Romantic art: transgression of rules,

expressing longing and the richness
of nature, focused on the individual
and the expression of the self

Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829)

 ROMANTICISM

More often: Romanticism ≠ Enlightenment

Enlightenment and Romanticism: not mutually exclusive.

They are both blanket terms that encompass a variety of different phenomena, at
times in stark contradiction with one another

Pivotal elements of Romantic aesthetics are rooted in important ideas that stemmed
from typical Enlightment endeavors:
• Sturm und Drang
• Herder’s interest in folklore
• Goethe’s notion of lyricism

There are many more continuities between the two «schools» of thought than it might
appear on the surface.
Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829) Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
 Universalpoesie

Notion that identifies in the combination of

poetry and its sister arts (in particular music)
as the goal of German culture

The “poetic” in German Romantic music

refers to this symbiotic idea of arts (crucial for
Schumann and for Wagner)

Composer: Tondichter

Schumann’s Schubert (ie. the image of

Schubert stemming from Schumann’s critical
writings) is very much informed by this
notion.

Friedrich Schlegel (1772-1829)

SCHUMANN and MUSIC CRITICISM

Criticism allows Schumann to systematize his

thoughts about music within a coherent
aesthetic system

It allows him to justify what he is doing as a

composer and why

It allows him to look back at the music of his

predecessors and thus reflect historically about
his own placement in relation to theirs

It allows him to be active as a writer while also

working as a composer (his articles often
avoided the by-now format of the review or the
essay, but often took the form of poems,
aphorisms, or other literary texts)

Schumann’s romantic self-consciousness goes

hand in hand with his rekindled sense of history
and his deliberate merging of poetry and music
Schumann’s father was a book dealer. He spent countless hours to read the classics to his son.

During his teens, Schumann founded a reading group focusing on the staples of German literature and philosophy: Herder, Schiller,
Goethe, and Schlegel

1828-29: he embarked in the study of law at the University of Leipzig, and took piano lessons under Friedrich Wieck, father of
Clara.

At the Wiecks’ he discovered the music of Schubert, whose works made an impression on him .

1831: he started having serious problems to one of his fingers. He sets aside the prospects of a career as a piano virtuoso for those
of a career as a composer and music critic

1831: publication of Papillions, the first of his several collections of piano character pieces inspired by literary suggestions, ideas, or
works

1830s: several other successful publications of piano music followed, but they were not enough to induce Wieck to allow Schumann
and his daughter Clara to get married. Lawsuit.

1840: Schumann and Clara win the case. Liederjahr: the year when Schumann was particularly prolific in the composition of Lieder.
Lied cycles turned out to be a much more remunerative endeavor than the collection of piano pieces, and also allowed him to
sublimate the tensions, frustrations, hopes, and sorrows of the legal case against Wieck in his music. Most of the cycles are about
love.
Im wunderschönen Monat Mai, In the marvelous month of May
Als alle Knospen sprangen, When all the buds burst open,
Da ist in meinem Herzen Then in my heart
Die Liebe aufgegangen. Love broke out.

Im wunderschönen Monat Mai, In the marvelous month of May,

Als alle Vögel sangen, As all the birds sang,
Da hab’ ich ihr gestanden Then I confessed to her
Mein Sehnen und Verlangen My longing and desire
 F# minor: V7 ?

A major: V7 I4-3
4-3

 D major: V7 I9-(8)

F# minor: V7 (?)
Ich grolle nicht, und wenn das Herz auch bricht, I do not resent, even if my heart is breaking,
Ewig verlor’nes Lieb! Ich grolle nicht. Love lost forever! I do not resent you.
Wie du auch strahlst in Diamantenpracht, Even though you gleam with the glory of diamonds
Es fällt kein Strahl in neines Herzens Nacht. No gleam falls into the night of your heart.

Das weiß ich längst. Ich sah dich ja im Träume I knew it long ago—I saw you in my dreams
Und sah die Nacht in deines Herzens Raume And saw the night in the expanse of your heart,
Und sah die Schlang’, die die am Herzen frißt, And saw the viper that gnaws at your bosom.
Ich sah, mein Lieb, wie sehr du elend bist. I saw, my love, how wretched you are.