Overview

A singer in an evening dress, a grand piano. A modest-sized audience, mostly well-dressed and silver-haired, equipped with translation booklets. A program consisting entirely of songs by one or two composers. This is the way of the Lieder recital these days. While it might seem that this style of performance is a long-standing tradition, German Song Onstage demonstrates that it is not. For much of the 19th century, the songs of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms were heard in the home, salon, and, no less significantly, on the concert platform alongside orchestral and choral works. A dedicated program was rare, a dedicated audience even more so. The Lied was a genre with both more private and more public associations than is commonly recalled. The contributors to this volume explore a broad range of venues, singers, and audiences in distinct places and time periods-including the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Germany-from the mid-19th century through the early 20th century. These historical case studies are set alongside reflections from a selection of today's leading musicians, offering insights on current Lied practices that will inform future generations of performers, scholars, and connoisseurs. Together these case studies unsettle narrow and elitist assumptions about what it meant and still means to present German song onstage by providing a transnational picture of historical Lieder performance, and opening up discussions about the relationship between history and performance today.

Full Product Details

9780253047007

Table of Contents

Reviews

The essays herein should appeal to a wide range of readers from the informed concert-goer who enjoys vocal music to conservatory students to the professoriate who will appreciate the exemplary scholarly apparatus. The editors are to be commended for a fine compilation that will pique interest in discovering or re-visiting the wide range of German song repertoire and the acclaimed artists who presented these cultural offerings to the world. -- Barry Zaslow * Music Reference Services Quarterly * This volume offers a multifaceted overview of the rich history of German song, and challenges contemporary performers and audiences, like Janus with a wide angle lens, to look at the totality oflieder's history to determine performance practice. It is highly recommended. -- Debra Greschner * Journal of Singing * The editors are to be commended for a fine compilation that will pique interest in discovering or re-visiting the wide range of German song repertoire and the acclaimed artists who presented these cultural offerings to the world. -- Barry Zaslow - Miami University * Music Reference Services Quarterly *

The essays herein should appeal to a wide range of readers from the informed concert-goer who enjoys vocal music to conservatory students to the professoriate who will appreciate the exemplary scholarly apparatus. The editors are to be commended for a fine compilation that will pique interest in discovering or re-visiting the wide range of German song repertoire and the acclaimed artists who presented these cultural offerings to the world. -- Barry Zaslow * Music Reference Services Quarterly * This volume offers a multifaceted overview of the rich history of German song, and challenges contemporary performers and audiences, like Janus with a wide angle lens, to look at the totality oflieder's history to determine performance practice. It is highly recommended. -- Debra Greschner * Journal of Singing *

Author Information

Natasha Loges is Head of Postgraduate Programmes at the Royal College of Music. She is author of Brahms and His Poets: A Handbook. She is also editor (with Katy Hamilton) of Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall: Between Private and Public Performance and Brahms in Context, as well as editor (with Anja Bunzel) of Musical Salon Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century. Laura Tunbridge is Professor of Music at the University of Oxford. She is author of Schumann's Late Style, The Song Cycle, and Singing in the Age of Anxiety: Lieder Performances in New York and London between the World Wars and editor (with Roe-Min Kok) of Rethinking Schumann.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available