Week 10 : The Song Cycle, Lieder and Orchestral Lieder

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Lieder of Liszt

•  Came to maturity as a song composer during his Weimar years à Hofkapellmeister. Creation of his most enduring works. Many of his revisions were to suit the singers there à Feodor and Rosa von Milde *created the roles of Elsa and Telramund for Wagner's Lohengrin 1850 premier). They were principal singers in Lieder evengiins held at the palace in Weimar . Liszt would accompany them.

•  87 songs for voice and piano, 16 for voice and orchestra. He is perhaps the first 19 th century composer to conceive of orchestral lieder for the concert hall.

•  In the 1830's he transcribed the lied of Beethoven and Schubert as solo compositions. During his German travels he encountered lieder of Schumann and Mendelssohn. He orchestrated Schubert lieder.

•  His early compositional approach is closely related to Schumann

•  Linking works through context

•  Develops a freer approach to form by avoiding strophic settings.

•  His songs are modified strophic or through composed.

•  Uses the Schumanesque dove tailing of the voice and piano (ex. Du bist wie eine Blume written at the same time as Schumann's version). Uses postludes.

•  During the 1840's his style changed (in the 1850's became more chromatic due to he and Wagner's compositional thinking.

•  All cycles published in the early 1840's contained fewer numbers

•  Texts were loosely linked in term of content

•  Few if any (except Loreley) are folk like.

•  Liszt's mature song writing career was in We

•  His songs are the missing link between Schumann and Wolf. Schönberg refers to Liszt as “one of those who started the battle against tonality” with his themes with no absolute tonal center, harmonic details

•  His best songs were set to Heine, Hoffmann von Fallersleben ( Weimar 's poet in residence), Uhland, Rellstab, Goethe and Schiller.

•  One of his greatest songs was Heine's Die Lorelei (1841, rev. 1854-9). The introduction contains a striking anticipation of the opening bars of Tristan (which at the time had not been composed).

•  The version of Die Lorelei for voice and orchestral is one of the several that Liszt made (as well as Die drei Zigeuner and Mignon's Lied).

•  Generally, the Weimar songs are characterized by a great freedom of vocal line which frequently unfolds over an advanced harmonic texture.

•  Jumps from one unrelated key to another causing his melodies to be filled with enharmonic subtleties.

•  He often asked his singers to color their voices where the poem required it à almost spoken, half voice, mysterious, dull or heavy, day dreaming.

•  Almost half of Liszt's lieder was composed by 1850. He made revisions to existing music in the mid 1850's. This makes his songs hard to evaluate.

•  He published a dozen songs in 2 sets, Buch der Lieder I, II. Another 6 songs in 1844. he regrouped his songs loosely joining them by subject matter then kept the songs he felt were successful in 1855 à he did this in all genres.

 

Die Loreley (Heine) 1841/rev. 1854-9, with orchestra 1860

•  He reads the poem as a dramatic monologue much the same way Schubert read “Erlkonig.” His music doesn't repeat in each verse but rather, begins like a narrative recitative. Stanzas retained only through the fourth verse.

•  The opening question, “ Ich Weiss nicht was soll's bedueten” is framed together with the first stanza in a double tonic complex of E and G and both colored with modality. E is established in the second stanza when the text describes the Rhine Valley .

•  Loreley's surroundings contrast with her nonchalant character à B-flat (an augmented 4 th away)

•  The fourth stanza is in D flat à her lamenting. The 5 th strophe and the first two lines of the sixth strophe depict the boatman and his watery end à This dramatic moment is depicted in the transitory modulations that rise chromatically F sharp à B flat which then returns to G.

•  The siren is depicted with a graceful chromatic melody “Sitzet” and Blitzet” for example.

•  As the poetry accelerates, Liszt travels faster through successive tonal centers, tempo, declamation, harmonic rhythm, and chromatic change. He repeated the last lines of his texts in order to finish in G major. Dramatically is very effective. These last 25 measures are the most drawn out tonal center of the entire song.

•  Of the 130 measures in the song, 68 are transitional.

•  This song is typical of his rhetoric in Les Preludes and Orpheus à thematic sections are reduced by the large transitory sections. His compositional rhetoric was a precursor of modernism. His lieder shows how early on he established his experimenting tonal language. Eg. Les jeux d'eaux à la villa d'este 1877 à was a model for Ravel's Jeux d'eau 1901

•  Blume und Duft 1862 is an extension of his ideas already established in Die Loreley but taken to extreme with chromaticism and transitional material.

 

Du Bist wie eine Blume 1843-9

•  2 strophe Heine text where his beloved is compared to a flower. The first half is straight forward A major à B minor à F shaprt Major. The second half in D major. The opening theme is restated. D major is reinforced by sustaining D's I nthe bass and middle voice.

•  Written at the same time as Schumann's version à dove tailing of voice and piano, 5 measure postlude reinforcing the tonic return.

•  He exploits the entire range of the piano.

•  Liszt does repeat vocal material at an octave transposition à his placement and spacing of simple progression triads are uncommon. He gives variety in every repetition.

•  Revised in 1860 à explores semitone voice leading.


Petrach Sonnets 1846

Early version 1846 à Bel canto style, all in A flat major

The tonalities and other similarities have been altered and filtered through his middle period compositional stage of the 1858 versions of piano solos written for the années Pèlerinage II (Italie). His most popular piano work, Liebestraum no. 3 actually began life as a song.

No. 104 Pace non trovo

Recit aria structure

Tessitura declamatory style of verismo opera

Piano introduction outlines an octatonic progression.

No. 47 Benedetto

Vague indication of Strauss' Cäcilie with octave leaps.

Melodious

No. 123 L'vidi in terra angelici costume

1865 pub. 1883

Ich Liebe dich 1857

•  Chromatically stacked tonal plateau for emotional impact

•  Poetry about ways the poet adores his lover à 8 lines, 8 ways.

•  Liszt explores many enharmonic resolutions for chords altered through simple step wise chromatic motion.

•  The voice in the first stanza lends itself for continual modulation. The antepenultimate pitch in the voice serves as a pivotal sonority that urges modulation away from the expected.

•  The second stanza the accompaniment is the primary focus which achieves each tonal rest together with the voice.

•  Vocal demands increase as the song continues by moving up in range.

 

Lieder of Hugo Wolf

•  In 1890 orchestrated 8 songs (critics say clumsily).

•  Harfenspieler

•  Harfenspieler II

•  Harfenspieler III

•  Mignon (kennst du das Land )

•  Der Rattenfänger

•  Anakreons Grab

•  Ganymed

•  Epiphanias

•  In 1883 he wrote a symphonic poem Penthesiea which was ridiculed in Vienna . He never wrote deliberately for orchestra again.

•  Intensified lied by extending tonality and post-Wagnerian declamation while rooting himself in the tradition of Schumann and Schubert.

•  His analyzing and readings of the poetry influenced his compositional approach in its harmonic nuances, tonal form, melodic design, vocal declamation, pianistic texture, and voice-piano relationship.

•  His harmonic progressions, elaboration of motives, and scene setting with poignant harmonies ( Deklamation) was influential to Bruckner.

•  Wolf was famous for his use of tonality to reinforce meaning. Concentrating on two tonal areas to musically depict ambiguity and conflict in the text became a hallmark of his style, resolving only when appropriate to the meaning of the song. His chosen texts were often full of anguish and inability to find resolve, and thus so too was the tonality wandering, unable to return to the home key. Use of deceptive cadences , chromaticism, dissonance , and chromatic mediants obscure the harmonic destination for as long as the psychological tension is sustained. His formal structure as well reflected the texts being set, and he wrote almost none of the straightforward strophic songs favoured by his contemporaries, instead building the form around the nature of the work.

•  Song cycles Mörike lieder, Eichendorff lieder, Italianisch liederbuch, Spanische liederbuch, Goethe lieder.

•  Transcr.: Beethoven: Pf Sonata, c , op.27 no.2, orchd 1876 [3rd movt inc.]


 

Lieder of Richard Strauss

•  The majority of his orchestral lieder were produced during two periods; the last decade of the nineteenth century, the second comprising the last years of his life. Of these, 15 are written specifically for voice and orchestra. The rest are songs for voice and piano, later reworked for orchestra and voice. However, he didn't rework orchestral lieder for voice and piano.

•  The orchestral lieder were written to provide his wife, and later Elisabeth Schumann concert repertoire.

•  He made orchestral transcriptions of songs by Beethoven (1898 Zwei Lieder von Beethoven) and Schubert (1897 Ganymed) .

•  Vier Ges änge, Op. 33

•  Brentano Lieder Op. 68

Zwei Gesänge für eine tiefe Bassstimme mit Orcesterbegleitung, Oop. 51, Der Einsame (The lonely one).

•  Frequent vocal leaps, passionate vocal line.

•  Densely voice string ensemble à quartet ofunmuted soloist à violin, viola, cello and double bass within a full but muted string tutti, while the rich winds (two basset horns), a contrabassoon, and bass tuba.

•  Like Mahler, Strauss employs the large goroup sparingly à only 9 of the 50 measures the whole orchestra is used in block chords in the lowest register to underscore the poem's central ideas of “Abgrund” (abyss) and “uralte Nacht” (Primeval night).

•  Harmonies are rich and functional yet modal with the F Phrygian and A flat Mixolydian.

 

Vier Letzte Lieder 1848

•  Name given by the publisher after his Strauss' death.

•  For soprano and the horn is called often and establishes links between all four songs.(his father was a horn player).

•  Spiritually, his music is related to Mahler (Das Lied von der Erde, and vier letzte Lieder) since both may be regarded as grand farewells.

•  He and Mahler took on Lied in the tradition of Schubert, Schumann and Brahms by absorbing, enlarging and renewing them.

Frühling- Hermann Hesse

September- Hesse

Beim Schlafengehen (While going to sleep)- Hesse

Im Abendrot (At twilight)- Eichendorff

•  It is argued these songs are an outgrowth of an idea in Strauss' earlier work, Ruhe, Meine Seele . He orchestrated this song in 1948. In Im Abendrot he resolves an otherwise unresolved motive in Ruhe Meine Seele.

•  He quotes from his tone poem Tod und Verklärung (Death and transfiguration). The quotes are intimate and elegiac in tone.

•  The poem depicts a couple walking side by side, who, after life's long journey, are ready to take leave of the world. The quote from his earlier work suggests a mood of acceptance and awareness of mortality (the tone poem concerns death and its highest glory).

 

 

Lieder of Gustav Mahler

•  His lieder consist of fifty individual songs in several major sets. Knowledge of his lieder is essential to understanding his symphonies.

•  Published 1892 three volumes of Lieder und Ges änge. The term Gesang implied a more expressively naturalistic lyric form, required through composition with less regularity of periodic folk song style to that of the lied.

•  His early songs employ an expansive use of the vocal tessitura such as arpeggios and other devices used in the folk idiom.

•  In both his songs and instrumental music, he avoided classification of his songs in order to let the music speak for itself.

•  The rhetoric of his songs is musical detailed complexity (dance forms, serenades, children's songs, military signals, and marches) and symbolic meaning are both masked with a veil of innocence.

•  Was influenced by the slow movements of late Beethoven and the chromatic ‘prose' style of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde

•  His first orchestral lieder were Humoresken à he used symphonic variation procedures and sophisticated orchestral techniques using folk song texts.

•  Even though his harmonic vocabulary is complex, he never sacrifices the Lied's melodic line. Sometimes he uses relatively simple larger structures supported by variation episodes and interludes in which various motifs are developed. This approach is used both in his lied and symphonic style.

•  Mahler left it to the listener to make the connections between symphony and song.

•  He uses texts he wrote himself or adapts from the collection, Des Knaben Wunderhorn.

•  Lieder eines fahrenden Gesselen (songs of the Wayfarer) à 1883-5 was an intimate composition in the cultural compromise of personal emotion. Example of one of his early cycles.

•  Wenn mein Schatz hochzeit macht (Des Knaben Wunderhorn)

•  Ging heut' morgens übers Feld (Mahler)

•  Ich hab' ein glühend Messer (Mahler)

•  Die zwei blauen Augen (Mahler)

•  Originally intended to be six songs but finished four songs 1883-1885. Topic is a young man's expressions of love in the first two and the loss of love in the second two. He eventually finds solace in her memory. This narrative evokes Schubert's Winterreise.

•  Initially for voice and piano and later for voice and orchestra.

•  He used thematic material from this cycle in his first symphony 1888, first movment and funeral march. He used the substance of ging heut' morgens übers Feld (I walked across the field this morning) in the first movement.

•  Die zwei blauen Augen (The two blue Eyes) à the final song, he avoids conventional harmonic resolution and instead uses a second inversion tonic chord.

•  Das himmlische leben (Heavenly Life) à does not end nthe same key in which it begins; the modulation from G major to E major foreshadows Mahler's approach to tonality in the fourth symphony, 1900). Just as Beethoven's Freude tune is derived from his Lied Gegenliebe, WoO 118, Mahler's Fourth symphony is derived from an earlier song.

•  Das Knaben Wunderhorn , (Brentano and Arnim) 1892 à he was attracted to the German folk poetry because, “rather than art, they are about nature and life (the source of all poetry).” In these songs he uses a more narrow range than in his other songs. It is hard to classify his harmonic vocabulary à conventional when compared to Schönberg but filled with harmonic ambiguities à Das irdische Leben (Earthly life), has been seen as being in B flat minor or B flat Phrygian. With a key signature of six flats and the frequent D naturals it implies E flat minor. He freely moves between major and minor modes and makes use of other modal inflections.

•  Der Schildwache Nachtlied

•  Verlor'ne Müh

•  Trost im Unglück

•  Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht?

•  Das irdische LEben

•  Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt

•  Rheinlegendchen

•  Lied des Verfolgten im Turm

•  Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen

•  Lob des hohen Verstandes

•  Es sungen drei Engel

•  Urlicht

•  Das himmlische Leben

•  Revelge

•  Der Tamboursg'sell

•  Extends to the second, third and fourth symphonies.

•  The last two Wunderhorn settings have more in common with the dramatic scena that with traditional Lieder. The way he uses the orchestra is similar to the instrumental style of the fifth symphony he was then composing. Both songs are fully realized orchestral Lieder. Mahler felt that Revelge was the most important of all his lieder. He also stated that the third symphony had been a study in rhythm for his Revelge.

 

•  Kindertotenlieder (Rückert ), 1901-4, ten songs to five lieder. Here and in Das Knaben Wunderhorn a partial setting of hans Bethge's German adaptations of Chinese poetry, Die chinesische Flöte 1907. Therefore there is an oriental atmosphere and related to the spiritual sentiments heard in his second and fourth symphonies.

•  A true cycle with the coherence through musical means (key choices) beginning and ending in the same key D (unlike his other cycles). The texts also provide coherence. The first song refers to the rising sun, and is echoed in the second song's dark flames, the third's candlelight, and the fourth's sunshine from on high, all of which eventually resolves when it is revealed that the children are now sheltered by God's hands as if they were in their mother's house.

•  He reached the limits of the Lied as it had been traditionally practiced à intimate union of poetry and music for psychological depth, direct communication between poet, composer, and listener; natural hierarchy of voice and accompaniment.

•  The harmonies are evocative and supple.

•  Nun will die Sonn' so hell aufgeh'n

•  Nun seh' ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen à unusually concentrated. Rare example of the composer in Wagnerian mode with clear tonal centers emerging ith chains of chromatic appoggiaturas both prepared and unprepared, and the absence of his often used pedal point.

•  Wen dein mütterlein

•  Oft denk'ich, sie sing nur ausgegangen

•  In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus.

•  Like in the fourth symphony, he lets the text stand on its own without any additional explanation.

•  Rückert-Lieder no. 3-7 1901-2

•  Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder

•  Ich atmet' einen linden Duft à melody effortlessly passed between voice and orchestra. Ethereal atmosphere.

•  Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen à lyrical, harp triplet arpeggios, sense of timelessness using the sixth added to the tonic chord and each phrase beginning on the weak part of the measure (seen in the Adagietto of the 5 th symphony).

•  Um Mitternacht

•  Liebst du um Schönheit

•  He did away with fanfares, military signals, dance and march rhythms and quasi folk style of the Wunderhorn songs

 

Das Lied von der Erde à The study of the human condition

•  This work he achieved the ultimate fusion of song and symphony. He drew on the strength of both genres to compose ad symphonic work with vocal elements throughout.

•  The eighth symphony 1906-08 precedes this and offers a study in contrast. While the earlier storms the heavens with sheer sound and the later one slips into nothingness. Mahler drew on the disparities and made them the ultimate subject in compressed form à relying on large orchestra but uses the full orchestra sparingly, chamber like textures predominate (esp. in the final song), juxtaposes other dualities à youth with death, night with day, autumn with spring à binary oppositions. Songs 1,2,5,6 deal with death. The voice à drunk with order and calm demeanor.

•  Comprised of six songs:

•  Das Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde (Drinking song of the earth's sorrows) à A minor

•  Der Einsame im Herbst (The lonely one in autumn)

•  Von der Jugend (Of youth)

•  Von der Schönheit (Of beauty)

•  Der Trunkene im Frühling (The drunkard in spring) à A major

•  Der Abschied (The farewell) à as long in duration as the first five songs together (most orchestral lieder cycles they are traditionally all equal in duration) à thus creating two sections. Moves from C minor to C major and draws on these two tonal centers on the concluding text, “ewig, ewig.” Textual considerations also support the large two part structure à the first five all pertain to earthly life and the last looks beyond the earth while singing praises.

 

Mahler's texts

•  Either used texts he wrote or adapted them from Des Knaben Wunderhorn .

•  Wunderhorn attracted many 19 th and 20 th century composers such as Schumann and Brahms. The volume gave a wide range of subjects à religious reflections, popular ballads, love songs, and children's verse. It had over 700 lyrics and published in three volumes between 1806 and 1808. Mahler encountered it in the 1880s.

•  Mahler treated the Wunderhorn poetry less strictly than other composers. He would change words or lines or combine texts from entirely different poems.

 

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