Lieder and Art Song for Beginners/Intermediates

[gurnemanz]

Songs are what I love most of all. This was where I started aged 18



I have many, many Lieder recordings and play some most days. I also like French mélodies and English and Russian and Czech and Scandinavian "art songs". It seems to me to be the purest and most quintessential of musical art forms and for me a song recital is the purest and most intimate communication in words and music. No wonder that in the prevalent music of our time (rock/pop) the song is the utterly predominant form. I derive just as much pleasure from great jazz singing (Ella, Nina, Billie and the rest doing Porter, Gershwin, Rodgers, Kern) and contemporary singer-songwriters (Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Lucinda Williams, Richard Thompson, Randy Newman etc) as I do from Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Wolf, Mahler, Zemlinsky, Pfitzner, R Strauss, Fauré, Satie, Ravel, Mussorgsky, Grieg, Sibelius, Dvorák, Janácek, Weill etc etc

[Beef Oven!]

French mélodie is something I listen to and study a great deal of the time and (imho) indispensable are:

Berlioz Les nuits d'été (Régine Crespin); La mort d'Ophélie (April Cantelo)
Gounod Ce que je suis sans toi (Souzay for preference) - I'm not a great fan of Gounod's songs, but that one is a gem
Fauré - so many to choose from! Après un rêve; the Cinq mélodies de Venise on poems by Verlaine; Nell, Les roses d'Ispahan, Les berceaux, Automne; and - if you like Fauré's later style - the cycle L'horizon chimérique (Charles Panzera)
Chausson - Le colibri, Sérénade italienne, Le temps des lilas
Duparc - any! But Phidylé is my favourite.
Chabrier - not really a mélodie, but his Ode à la musique is adorable!
Debussy - currently looking at the Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire; the Verlaine Ariettes oubliées and Fêtes galantes are wonderful too
Ravel - Shéhérazade, as mentioned above (Crespin again); Danco in the Trois poèmes de Mallarmé; Baker in the those too and also the Chansons madécasses.
Satie - the café-concert songs such as La Diva de l'Empire and Je te veux. There used to be a wonderful LP of Meriel and Peter Dickinson doing these.
Roussel - quirky! Sarabande is my favourite Roussel song, plus the Deux poèmes chinois Op 35 (Sarah Walker or Clare Croiza)
Poulenc - anything! 'C' is heart-breaking (Bernac and Poulenc), Hotel is gorgeous, Tel jour, tel nuit a fabulous cycle. Oh, and Le bestiaire (Jean-Christophe Benoit) is hilarious!

And then there's Messiaen and Dutilleux, including an orchestral song cycle - Le temps l'horloge - written as recently as 2008 for Renée Fleming

There's just SO much to discover!

[cloughie]

French mélodie is something I listen to and study a great deal of the time and (imho) indispensable are:

Berlioz Les nuits d'été (Régine Crespin); La mort d'Ophélie (April Cantelo)
Gounod Ce que je suis sans toi (Souzay for preference) - I'm not a great fan of Gounod's songs, but that one is a gem
Fauré - so many to choose from! Après un rêve; the Cinq mélodies de Venise on poems by Verlaine; Nell, Les roses d'Ispahan, Les berceaux, Automne; and - if you like Fauré's later style - the cycle L'horizon chimérique (Charles Panzera)
Chausson - Le colibri, Sérénade italienne, Le temps des lilas
Duparc - any! But Phidylé is my favourite.
Chabrier - not really a mélodie, but his Ode à la musique is adorable!
Debussy - currently looking at the Cinq poèmes de Baudelaire; the Verlaine Ariettes oubliées and Fêtes galantes are wonderful too
Ravel - Shéhérazade, as mentioned above (Crespin again); Danco in the Trois poèmes de Mallarmé; Baker in the those too and also the Chansons madécasses.
Satie - the café-concert songs such as La Diva de l'Empire and Je te veux. There used to be a wonderful LP of Meriel and Peter Dickinson doing these.
Roussel - quirky! Sarabande is my favourite Roussel song, plus the Deux poèmes chinois Op 35 (Sarah Walker or Clare Croiza)
Poulenc - anything! 'C' is heart-breaking (Bernac and Poulenc), Hotel is gorgeous, Tel jour, tel nuit a fabulous cycle. Oh, and Le bestiaire (Jean-Christophe Benoit) is hilarious!

And then there's Messiaen and Dutilleux, including an orchestral song cycle - Le temps l'horloge - written as recently as 2008 for Renée Fleming

There's just SO much to discover!

There are also Britten's Quatre Chansons Francaises which could easily be taken as Ravel - I rather like them whereas there is a lot of Britten's vocal works I'm not keen on.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Roslynmuse has really covered the French Art Song ground comprehensively, but one name I'd like to add is Hahn. One of those composers for whom a big sniff used to be compulsory, followed by 'Just light music' or similar dismissal. But what a gift for tunes, and not just in Si mes vers avaient des ailes either.

Art-song (and a few other sorts) is one of my big things. We could get on to Russian song (Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, Shostakovich (don't get me started!)), Scandinavian song (Grieg, Sibelius...). All very big stuff in the LMP canon. And shelf-space

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Not wishing to turn this into Pedants' Paradise but even though the standard French for 'song' is chanson, yer ackshuw French art song (Fauré, Debussy, Ravel, Duparc, Hahn territory) is properly called mélodie

Dagnabbitt! You're absolutely correct, of course.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

OK, but They are sopranos with exceedingly nice voices

Back to the domestic music-making, and I know from comments on these boards the marmite factor comes into play when it comes to vocals, the Bonney/Martineau RSt 4 Last is a CD which I like.

I had to look that one up! (For a moment, I thought you meant Jean Martinon - and wondered when their paths had crossed! ) The 4LS with piano accompaniment? I'm very intrigued.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

More for Edgey, and anyone else finding their way into the German lied:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLUyY8m3dPA

(Do I get a prize from Pumpkin for breaking the "only alive" sequence?)

[Pianorak]

That said I'm not overly fond of lieder.

but I wouldn't want to live without these two:

Strauss: Four Last Songs - Lucia Popp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMFPYoiBTvA

Wagner: Wesendonck Lieder - Kirsten Flagstad

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpAd7yTQOY4

[Mary Chambers]

There are also Britten's Quatre Chansons Francaises which could easily be taken as Ravel - I rather like them whereas there is a lot of Britten's vocal works I'm not keen on.

These are extremely early works of Britten. He was fourteen years old when he wrote them. Although I agree they are appealing, they are quite derivative. Much better to go for the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings or the rather less accessible Nocturne, both very beautiful orchestral settings of English poetry. Winter Words is a subtle voice/piano setting of poems by Thomas Hardy. Or, to back to French, his Rimbaud cycle Les Illuminations (voice and orchestra) is very exciting.

I don't recommend recordings. I only have Britten's own, with Pears, which are definitive. Otherwise I like live performances if possible, and I know the music so well that it is in any case permanently in my head.

[cloughie]

These are extremely early works of Britten. He was fourteen years old when he wrote them. Although I agree they are appealing, they are quite derivative. Much better to go for the Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings or the rather less accessible Nocturne, both very beautiful orchestral settings of English poetry. Winter Words is a subtle voice/piano setting of poems by Thomas Hardy. Or, to back to French, his Rimbaud cycle Les Illuminations (voice and orchestra) is very exciting.

I don't recommend recordings. I only have Britten's own, with Pears, which are definitive. Otherwise I like live performances if possible, and I know the music so well that it is in any case permanently in my head.

Good morning Mary
We've agreed to differ before on Britten and there's no change now. Pears' voice divides opinion but more than that His voice haunts performances of Britten's works because they were written for him. If his voice appeals the fine but if not it's hard to like much of Britten's works with a tenor voice.

[rauschwerk]

When I moved to this area 40 years ago, I soon found my accompanying skills in great demand. I was fortunate to make friends early on with a lawyer and excellent amateur singer (his father was a professional tenor). After supper we would often make music and he taught me a lot about the song repertoire and the art of accompaniment. Over the years I have particularly enjoyed playing:

Schubert: Du bist die Ruh', An Silvia, Hark, hark the Lark, The Trout, Der Musensohn (if the singer enters with Nellie the Elephant it fits for 5 bars), Frühlingsglaube, Das Fischermädchen, Der Doppelgänger (what a chilling piece!). I am much less a fan of Die junge Nonne (the lactic acid gets in my muscles after a few pages of the incessant rh tremolo) and the major song cycles.

Schumann: Fraunliebe und -Leben, Waldesgespräch, Mondnacht (these two from the Op. 39 Liederkreis), some of Dichterliebe (probably have bashed through all of that cycle).

Berlioz: Les nuits d'été.

Hahn: Á Chloris, Si mes vers, L'heure exquise, Trois jours de vendange, Quand je fus pris au pavillon.

Rodrigo: Cuatros madrigales amatorios.

Britten: Four songs from A Birthday Hansel arr. voice and piano.

More later...

[Mary Chambers]

Good morning Mary
We've agreed to differ before on Britten and there's no change now. Pears' voice divides opinion but more than that His voice haunts performances of Britten's works because they were written for him. If his voice appeals the fine but if not it's hard to like much of Britten's works with a tenor voice.

Fair enough. We all have voices we don't like. It does sound a bit, though, as if you're listening to the voice rather than the actual music, or indeed the interpretation of it - I suppose it's possible to argue that in Britten's case they are one and the same thing.

I was very pleased (though a bit surprised) to read an interview with the great Lieder pianist Julius Drake where he was asked if he thought Britten's songs were the equal of Schubert's, though of course different. His answer was a definite yes. I don't have a reference for this, unfortunately, but it wasn't very long ago.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Fair enough. We all have voices we don't like. It does sound a bit, though, as if you're listening to the voice rather than the actual music, or indeed the interpretation of it - I suppose it's possible to argue that in Britten's case they are one and the same thing.

I recall hearing or reading that Pears' voice was close to unique among tenors because the break between chest and head voice was at an unusual pitch. I'm guessing this means his voice was strong where other tenors tend to be weak and vice versa, at least in the notes around the break.

As BB knew the voice thoroughly and would have played to PP's strong suits, might this not make other tenors singing Britten somehow always remind us of Pears, even if we positively don't wish to be reminded, and possibly even make them almost automatically into poor imitations? If so, ouch!(*)

Tenors and other decent singers, please comment!

(*)Myself, I wouldn't be without his Brittens and can easily stand his voice in other repertoire.

[LeMartinPecheur]

this astonishing and wonderful website is absolutely indispensable for those of us with nothing more than O level French.

http://www.lieder.net/lieder/get_text.html?TextId=7768

Perhaps they should rename the website because it's a great resource for all song repertoire in any language and not just for English speakers.

Non-English speakers are in with a chance of getting a translation into their own language, at least for the more popular repertoire. Sometimes it'll be a singing translation, sometimes literal.

[Mary Chambers]

I recall hearing or reading that Pears' voice was close to unique among tenors because the break between chest and head voice was at an unusual pitch. I'm guessing this means his voice was strong where other tenors tend to be weak and vice versa, at least in the notes around the break.

I believe this is the case. He also had outstanding breath control and legato. Crucially, he had an exceptionally sensitive response to text. This is something that not all listeners can hear.

You ask for comments from 'tenors and other decent singers'. I like to think I am a decent singer, but not professional and certainly not a tenor.