Definition
The Lied (plural Lieder) is the German art song for voice and piano on a poetic text, which flourished between the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries: Schubert (over 600 Lieder), Schumann, Brahms, Hugo Wolf, Mahler, Richard Strauss. The piano is not an accompaniment but a partner: it describes images (the spinning wheel turning, the galloping horse, the brook) and comments on the text with preludes and postludes. Equivalents in other languages: the French mélodie (Fauré, Debussy), the Italian romanza da camera (Tosti), the English art song.
The three basic forms
| Form | How it works | When it is used | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strophic | the same music for each stanza of the text | folk-like, uniform texts with a single emotion | Schubert, Heidenröslein D. 257 |
| Modified strophic | same music with one or more stanzas modified (change of mode, accompaniment, melody) | when a stanza brings a turning point | Schubert, Der Lindenbaum (from Winterreise); Die Forelle D. 550 |
| Durchkomponiert (through-composed) | new music that follows the text from beginning to end, possibly with recurring motifs | narrative or dramatic texts | Schubert, Erlkönig D. 328 (1815) |
There are also ternary forms (ABA), rondo forms with a musical refrain (Schubert, Gretchen am Spinnrade D. 118, 1814, in which the spinning-wheel motif and the opening phrase return as a refrain) and bar forms (AAB, the Barform of the Minnesänger and of chorales).
Example: Schubert, Erlkönig (text by Goethe)
- Four characters (narrator, father, son, Erlking) performed by a single voice, with different registers and harmonies: the son sings with growing dissonances and his cry rises by step at each interjection; the Erlking has seductive melodies in the major.
- The piano has repeated octaves in triplets throughout the Lied (the gallop), in G minor.
- At the end the gallop stops and the narrator concludes in recitative: the child is dead; curt final cadence.
It is durchkomponiert because the music follows the dramatic growth without strophic repetitions.
Example: Der Lindenbaum (Winterreise No. 5, 1827)
- First stanza in E major, folk-like melody.
- The next stanza moves to E minor and then returns to the major.
- The middle stanza has an agitated accompaniment (the cold wind).
- The opening melody returns in the major, varied: it is modified strophic.
The Lieder cycle
A series of Lieder on connected texts that form a story or a journey:
- Beethoven, An die ferne Geliebte Op. 98 (1816), considered the first true cycle.
- Schubert, Die schöne Müllerin (1823) and Winterreise (1827, 24 Lieder).
- Schumann, Dichterliebe Op. 48 and Frauenliebe und -leben Op. 42 (both 1840); in Dichterliebe the piano postlude closes the cycle with a long instrumental reflection.
- Mahler, Kindertotenlieder, Das Lied von der Erde (with orchestra); Strauss, Four Last Songs (1948).
How to analyze a Lied
- Read and translate the text; divide it into stanzas and identify the emotional turning point.
- Note the musical form (strophic, modified, through-composed) and compare it with the text.
- Analyze the piano: figuration, images, prelude and postlude.
- Follow the key: do the modulations coincide with the turning points of the text?
- Observe the prosody: word accents on strong beats, key words on long or high notes.
For songwriters today
The three forms are the same as in songwriting: the strophic folk song (same music for each verse), the song with a modified verse (the last verse in the minor or at half tempo), the durchkomponiert song (Queen, Bohemian Rhapsody, 1975, or the “suite” pieces of progressive rock). The role of the piano in the Lied is the model of the arrangement that tells a story: an instrumental figure that represents an image from the text.
Related
Prosody: words, melody and harmony, Verse–chorus form, Recitative and da capo aria, Nocturne, Binary, ternary and AABA form.