Lieder & Song

The first songs that have come down to us are those of the troubadors, trouveres and minnesingers; for the most part itinerant minstrels who flourished at the turn of the second millenium. The art song as we know it however only began to appear in the Renaissance era, first accompanied by lute and then in the Classical period, the piano, developing into the orchestral lieder of the late 19th Century. Through the Classical and Romantic eras, the German form of song, known as the Lied became the most important (and dominant) of the genre. It was Beethoven who wrote the first song-cycle An die ferne Geliebte but it was Schubert who became the greatest songwriter of them all, with over 600 works composed in the genre including his great three song-cycles, Die schone Mullerin, Winterreise and .Schwanengesang. Elsewhere, in France there was the Melodie, popular in the salons of Paris and in the twentieth century the English folksong proved of great inspiration to the pastoral generation of twentieth-century British composers.

Key works: Beethoven: An die ferne Geliebte; Schubert: An die Musik; An Sylvia; Die Forelle; Erlkonig; Gretchen am Spinnrade; Die schone Mullerin; Schwanengesang; Winterreise; Schumann: Dichterliebe; Frauenliebe und Leben; Liederkreis Op. 39; R. Strauss: Four Last Songs; Wolf: Eichendorf Lieder, Italienisches Liederbuch, Spanisches Liederbuch