Songs/lieder vocal music: singers and composers

[Dave2002]

I have for many years had misgivings about songs and lieder. What exactly are they?

Some, such as those by George Butterworth, with words by AE Housman are very clear - they usually tell a story, and of course they are in English. There is some characterisation, as in "Is My Team Ploughing?" where there are really two voices, and a good singer will differentiate between the characters - though this perhaps doesn't happen in every song. Such characterisation is also clear in songs such as Schubert's Death and the Maiden, and the ErlKing, while other songs are more narrative. It is possible that some songs may have a narrator, plus a few other characters. The characters may also be of opposite genders, which can present extra problems.

Some songs are very abstract, and in some the composers are really guilty of creating something which just doesn't work - words which have to be sung too fast to be meaningful, or impossible dynamics from the accompaniment, so that the singer cannot be heard. Even when songs are in English, it's still possible to miss words even if the texts are in English - sometimes due to poor diction by the singer, but not always.

As an art form, presumably most composers write these because of a desire to produce a piece of art which somehow enhances the words, and if the words have meaning it makes sense if the music reflects this. Another reason might be for a commission, or for a request by a singer. One is not always convinced that composers actually enjoy writing songs.

Some songs are well known as tunes, but the meaning is not well known. Die Forelle - the Trout (again Schubert) is a case in point. Most non German speakers/readers will realise that it's a story about a fish in a stream, though not realise that initially the fish swims freely, but eventually gets caught. The "actors" in that song are: the stream, the trout, the angler and the observer. Some singers manage to express the horror of the last verse, where the cunning angler stirs up the mud and catches the fish. Many just sing the notes - and we are none the wiser.

I wonder if all singers are taught about characterisation in songs/lieder. Many don't seem to be able to bring this off. An added complication is that some poetry as text, even in its original language, is very hard to understand - the words may not make sense, although some meaning may be discerned with cultural awareness. Once the words are translated something which has tenuous meaning may become totally incomprehensible.

Help!

[french frank]

Thinking about it (as they say), I suppose most 'art songs' start off life as poems, so might you ask the some of the questions of the poets? The main difference in terms of expectation would be that a poet expects the words to be understood by a native speaker of the language. That seems to me to be a way in which a composer reaches out much more widely by setting the words to music.

Similar 'misgivings' exist in terms of opera sung in the original language - you need to understand perhaps the 'inspiration' or development but not the literal meaning of each word. True, with lieder, the singers have less time to get the meaning over. But just as some singers specialise in opera, others specialise in song, one would hope because they are forms which they enjoy (Alfie Boe notwithstanding!). I'm sure composers do enjoy working on 'miniatures'. The real joy is when music, words, and performers all seem to be 'of a piece'. I'm very fussy about French songs where so few singers can manage the distinctive vowels and nasals which are natural to French speakers.

[Dave2002]

Similar 'misgivings' exist in terms of opera sung in the original language - you need to understand perhaps the 'inspiration' or development but not the literal meaning of each word. True, with lieder, the singers have less time to get the meaning over. But just as some singers specialise in opera, others specialise in song, one would hope because they are forms which they enjoy (Alfie Boe notwithstanding!). I'm sure composers do enjoy working on 'miniatures'. The real joy is when music, words, and performers all seem to be 'of a piece'. I'm very fussy about French songs where so few singers can manage the distinctive vowels and nasals which are natural to French speakers.

Opera is also problematic, but the constraints are different. There is more time (sometimes too much ) to develop ideas, and the sets and dramatic action sometime help to convey meaning. Props and action are to a large extent missing with songs.

Some songs developed from a singing tradition - folk songs and work songs, and in some cases there isn't really a story to be told, as it is generally known by all the participants - singers. Dare I mention rugby songs?

Art songs are probably too difficult in many cases to be sung by casual singers, so have a different role.

[Serial_Apologist]

If we're speaking of art songs I tend to think of them as piano pieces with words to sing. I suppose, maybe because I hadn't given the topic any thought I think of the song or "Lied" in the classical tradition as separate from song forms of more ancient (folksongs) or modern (standards, pop tunes, blues, gospel etc), because it has never occurred to me to wonder when the art song came about. Was it in the time of the late 16the century madrigal, when singers would be accompanied by a lutenist? We're talking the secular song, are we? Perhaps we need to go back further to the Original Carmina Burana - but now we're prone to considering borderlines between what people think of as the European classical tradition and older folk traditions which may still coexist and interact with it/them.

Art songs seem to come in many guises, seen through the prism of promoters and broadcasters, however, from the Romantic (starting with Schubert?) to Eisler's songs of antifascist resistance in the 1930s, which lock into a much older tradition outwith the concert hall of marching songs etc. For me the best art songs are those in which the lyrics are reflected in the accompaniment, i.e. the organic work-out - the canon rising from stygian depths to represent black moths of depression coming to blot out the sun in "Nacht" from "Pierrot Lunaire" being for me a fine example.

[verismissimo]

From time to time I lead a session with our village reading group and this gives me the opportunity (with their agreement) to introduce them to words and then music - in that order.

So a couple of years ago, they read a range of German Romantic poems, then listened to song settings in the get-together, having discussed the meaning and intentions of the various poets. Then we went to a lieder recital with several of the same songs.

For many it was their first occasion of that sort, and there was an overwhelming feeling of engagement in the concert. Not always the case at such events.

I've done the same thing with them with opera. Words first, music later. That's the way it happens at the creation of the works!

[Serial_Apologist]

From time to time I lead a session with our village reading group and this gives me the opportunity (with their agreement) to introduce them to words and then music - in that order.

So a couple of years ago, they read a range of German Romantic poems, then listened to song settings in the get-together, having discussed the meaning and intentions of the various poets. Then we went to a lieder recital with several of the same songs.

For many it was their first occasion of that sort, and there was an overwhelming feeling of engagement in the concert. Not always the case at such events.

I've done the same thing with them with opera. Words first, music later. That's the way it happens at the creation of the works!

I would think you have taken quite a risk! Quite a number of opera lovers acknowledge that without music, many a libretto would not stand up, either plotwise or as literature.

[teamsaint]

I would think you have taken quite a risk! Quite a number of opera lovers acknowledge that without music, many a libretto would not stand up, either plotwise or as literature.

well I don't know about opera, but its blindingly obvious that there is no kind of straight line correlation between quality of lyric, and overall quality of song

Ungainly words or dodgy tunes can wreck any song, but the trick is surely in the musical setting.

Blacksmiths are seriously over represented in the lyrics to Brahms songs and choral works, but the great man knew how to make it all work.

[french frank]

Some songs developed from a singing tradition - folk songs and work songs, and in some cases there isn't really a story to be told, as it is generally known by all the participants - singers. Dare I mention rugby songs?

Art songs are probably too difficult in many cases to be sung by casual singers, so have a different role.

In this context it might be worth mentioning that most 'pop music' consists of 'songs'.

[gurnemanz]

In this context it might be worth mentioning that most 'pop music' consists of 'songs'.

I converted early to Lieder when I was about 17-18 in about 1967 and I discovered there were more songs around than the ones I loved by Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Bob Dylan etc and the folky stuff. I think I was always more into songs as such, rather than rock music. I went to university to study German which may have been a factor. One of the first classical LPs I bought was Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore in Die schöne Müllerin. The Klavierlied just appealed to me right away with its partnership between two musicians, its succinctness and synthesis of words and music. The piano accompaniment seems to me in a pure form to give all you need in terms of harmony, tone colour, melody and rhythm etc to provide a sonic backcloth to words and voice. I moved on over the years to classical English, French, Russian, Czech songs.

In addition, I love the jazz renditions of classic songs by Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin etc from the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, Lee Wiley, Sarah Vaughan and really enjoy a few of the great singer-songwriters of today such as Randy Newman, Joni Miitchell (both accompany themselves on the piano), Lucinda Williams, Richard Thompson and others.

I find song recitals to be the most intense and intimate kind of concert.

[Mary Chambers]

Lieder, songs, whatever you like to call them, are my passion. I think this is because poetry and music are my main two interests, so a perfect blend of the two is my idea of heaven. As far as I'm concerned Schubert and Britten reign supreme in the field, because they both have a very intense and sensitive response to words. The words are obviously very important, so I'm always baffled by people who listen happily to the 'tunes', or the general impression, without attaching much importance to the text the music is expressing. For this reason I'm not entirely happy with songs in languages I don't really understand, such as Russian. Summaries and translations just aren't enough, because they don't supply the nuances or the actual sound of particular words and structures.

A friend of mine is very, very keen on Schubert Lieder, and will travel miles to hear recitals - yet she does not understand German at all. This doesn't appear to worry her, but surely she and I must be hearing quite different things. (I've mentioned this before, so apologies to those who've heard it already.) The fact that we can never really know what other people are hearing in music has always fascinated me.

[hedgehog]

For me it's the balance between the strength of the text, the music and the performance and so in any genre whether it's called a song or lieder there are really strong amalgamations or lesser so. Let's not forget jazz/blues and one of the strongest ever in Billy Holiday and "Strange Fruit" :

http://youtu.be/h4ZyuULy9zs

[gurnemanz]

Intriguing collection from Anne Sofie von Otter coming up

[teamsaint]

I converted early to Lieder when I was about 17-18 in about 1967 and I discovered there were more songs around than the ones I loved by Buddy Holly, The Beatles, Bob Dylan etc and the folky stuff. I think I was always more into songs as such, rather than rock music. I went to university to study German which may have been a factor. One of the first classical LPs I bought was Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore in Die schöne Müllerin. The Klavierlied just appealed to me right away with its partnership between two musicians, its succinctness and synthesis of words and music. The piano accompaniment seems to me in a pure form to give all you need in terms of harmony, tone colour, melody and rhythm etc to provide a sonic backcloth to words and voice. I moved on over the years to classical English, French, Russian, Czech songs.

In addition, I love the jazz renditions of classic songs by Cole Porter, Richard Rodgers, Irving Berlin etc from the likes of Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, Lee Wiley, Sarah Vaughan and really enjoy a few of the great singer-songwriters of today such as Randy Newman, Joni Miitchell (both accompany themselves on the piano), Lucinda Williams, Richard Thompson and others.

I find song recitals to be the most intense and intimate kind of concert.

Picking up on what you say about pop and rock, I would agree that in that it is usually the songs that appeal . The people you mention, (Buddy, Dylan etc) were great songwriters first and foremost.
There have been some interesting figures on the edge of " Art song" as well. You will no doubt know Alex Harvey's work. He played around with a variety of songs from a wide range of sources (at times) to incredible effect.
He certainly introduced me to types of song that, as a teenager, I would never have encountered or at least taken seriously. Brilliant stuff, and has sutck with me over the decades.

[verismissimo]

Coming up this Friday at Holywell, Oxford:

http://www.oxfordlieder.co.uk/events/1037

Pregardien and Vignoles in Mendelssohn, Schubert, Brahms and Mahler.

I'll be there!

[doversoul1]

I expect there are scientific explanations but I guess/assume that music intensifies emotion, or it is capable of making emotion felt more directly. Isn’t this part of the purpose of devotional music? I imagine Monteverdi knew that if he set music to the age old tale of Orfeo, it would make much more effective ‘entertainment’ than just have the story read out or even acted out.

As S-A says somewhere up the thread, many Baroque operas have flimsy libretti or in many cases, the stories were well know to the original audience. I think the same can be said about a lot of Baroque secular cantatas. So I suppose people (usually) listen to songs to have an emotional experience (sorry about the cliché) rather than to hear a story or a poem.

To me, Erbarme dich from Bach's Matthew Passion does exactly this.

Mind you, to many people, words or more precisely, voices get in the way of appreciating the music. I was one of them not so long ago.