Concise History of Western Music
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Chapter Index Chapter 1: Music in Ancient Greece and Early Christian Rome Chapter 2: Chant and Secular Song in the Middle Ages, 400Ð1450 Chapter 3: Polyphonic Music from Its Beginnings through the Thirteenth Century Chapter 4: French and Italian Music in the Fourteenth Century Chapter 5: England and Burgundian Lands in the Fifteenth Century: The Beginnings of an International Style Chapter 6: The Age of the Renaissance: Music of the Low Countries Chapter 7: The Age of the Renaissance: New Currents in the Sixteenth Century Chapter 8: Church Music of the Late Renaissance and Reformation Chapter 9: Church Music of the Late Renaissance and Reformation Chapter 10: Opera and Vocal Music in the Late Seventeenth Century Chapter 11: Instrumental Music in the Late Baroque Chapter 12: Music in the Early Eighteenth Century Chapter 13: The Early Classic Period: Opera and Instrumental Music in the Eighteenth Century Chapter 14: The Late Eighteenth Century: Haydn and Mozart Chapter 15: Ludwig van Beethoven Chapter 16: Romanticism and Nineteenth-Century Orchestral Music Chapter 17: Solo, Chamber, and Vocal Music in the Nineteenth Century Chapter 18: Opera, Music Drama, and Church Music in the Nineteenth Century Chapter 19: European Music from the 1870s to World War I Chapter 20: The European Mainstream in the Twentieth Century Chapter 21: Atonality, Serialism, and Recent Developments in Twentieth-Century Europe Chapter 22: The American Twentieth Century
 

Outlines:
  - Music for Solo Piano
  - Chamber Music
  - The Lied
  Quiz
  Listening Guide
Chapter 17: Solo, Chamber, and Vocal Music in the Nineteenth Century
The Lied
  1. The Ballad

    1. A poetic form cultivated in Germany in imitation of English and Scottish ballads

    2. Long poems alternating narrative and dialogue

    3. Stories included romantic adventures and supernatural incidents.

    4. German composers seized on these poems, which afforded them more opportunities for musical expression than the lieder of the eighteenth century.

    5. The piano part rose in status to equal partner in illustrating and intensifying the meaning of the poetry.

  2. Schubert

    1. Schubert composed lieder in a variety of forms and styles.

    2. Some lieder are in a folklike idiom, (ex., NAWM 112, Der Lindenbaum).

    3. Some are sweet, others declamatory and dramatic.

    4. Harmonic devices, such as hovering between the major and minor forms of the triad, chromatic coloring, and sudden modulations often help portray the drama.

    5. Schubert's choice of form always suits the poetical and musical requirements of the text. Often they are strophic, but sometimes with slight variations.

    6. Accompanimental figures often illustrate the text and contribute to the mood of the song.
      1. NAWM 111, Gretchen am Spinnrade, uses a constant sixteenth-note figure in the accompaniment to portray the spinning wheel and Gretchen's moods.
      2. In Der Erlkönig (The Erlking) the piano portrays a galloping horse.
      3. In Der Doppelgänger (The Double) somber chords with a sinister motive portray the ghostly horror of the scene.

    7. Texts come from many poets, especially Goethe, Wilhelm Müller, and Heinrich Heine.

    8. Song cycles were sometimes composed as sets, and sometimes published as such posthumously.
      1. Schwanengesang (Swan Song, 1828) cycle was published as a cycle after his death.
      2. Winterreise consists of twenty-four poems by Müller.
        1. The lover reminisces about a summer romance in the winter.
        2. NAWM 112, Der Lindenbaum (The Linden Tree) is about the tree where the narrator used to dream of his love.
        3. The music is in modified strophic form.

  3. Robert Schumann

    1. Was the first important successor to Schubert in lied composition.

    2. In 1840 he composed more than one hundred lieder, including two cycles.

    3. Dichterliebe (A Poet's Love) consists of sixteen songs from Heinrich Heine's Lyrisches Intermezzo.
      1. The theme of unrequited love runs through the poems.
      2. The first song of the cycle, Im wunderschönen Monat Mai (In the marvelous month of May), NAWM 113a, expresses anxiety about love that may not be returned. Tonal ambiguity and tension between voice and piano reflect the mood.
      3. NAWM 113b, Ich grolle nicht (I bear no grudge) uses a declamatory approach to portray defiance.

  4. Clara Schumann (1819–1896)

    1. Biographical background
      1. Pianist, composer, sponsor of others' music
      2. Wife of Robert Schumann, mother of eight
      3. Friend of Brahms
      4. Concert pianist from the age of nine
      5. Continued to perform, compose and teach after her marriage

    2. Example: NAWM 114, Geheimes Flüstern hier und dort (Secret Whispers here and there)
      1. Part of a cycle
      2. Three stanzas in a strophic setting
      3. Forest setting portrayed by continuous sixteenth-notes

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