Art Song

Art songs are not new to the Romantic era. Many composers of earlier historical periods composed songs that would fit the definition of art song as listed in this page. We study art songs now because they were such an integral part of the Romantic repertoire, particularly that of Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms. Because so many art songs in a Romantic style were composed by German composers, we often use the German word for songs, “lieder,” when studying this genre.

Introduction

An art song is a vocal music composition, usually written for one voice with piano accompaniment, and usually in the classical tradition. By extension, the term “art song” is used to refer to the genre of such songs. An art song is most often a musical setting of an independent poem or text, “intended for the concert repertory” “as part of a recital or other relatively formal social occasion.”

Art Song Characteristics

While many pieces of vocal music are easily recognized as art songs, others are more difficult to categorize. For example, a wordless vocalise written by a classical composer is sometimes considered an art song and sometimes not.

Other factors help define art songs:

Songs that are part of a staged work (such as an opera or a musical) are not usually considered art songs. However, some Baroque arias that “appear with great frequency in recital performance” are now included in the art song repertoire.
Songs with instruments besides piano and/or other singers are referred to as “vocal chamber music”, and are usually not considered art songs.
Songs originally written for voice and orchestra are called “orchestral songs” and are not usually considered art songs, unless their original version was for solo voice and piano.
Folksongs are generally not considered art songs unless they are concert arrangements with piano accompaniment written by a specific composer Several examples of these songs include Aaron Copland’s two volumes of Old American Songs, the Folksong arrangements by Benjamin Britten, and the Siete canciones populares españolas (Seven Spanish Folksongs) by Manuel de Falla.
There is no agreement regarding sacred songs. Many song settings of biblical or sacred texts were composed for the concert stage and not for religious services; these are widely known as art songs (for example, the Vier ernste Gesänge by Johannes Brahms). Others sacred songs may or may not be considered art songs.
A group of art songs composed to be performed in a group to form a narrative or dramatic whole is called a song cycle.

Languages and Nationalities

Art songs have been composed in many languages, and are known by several names. The German tradition of art song composition is perhaps the most prominent one; it is known as Lieder. In France, the term Mélodie distinguishes art songs from other French vocal pieces referred to as chansons. The Spanish Canción and the Italian Canzone refer to songs generally and not specifically to art songs.

Art Song Formal Design

The composer’s musical language and interpretation of the text often dictate the formal design of an art song. If all of the poem’s verses are sung to the same music, the song isstrophic. Arrangements of folk songs are often strophic, and “there are exceptional cases in which the musical repetition provides dramatic irony for the changing text, or where an almost hypnotic monotony is desired.” Several of the songs in Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin are good examples of this. If the vocal melody remains the same but the accompaniment changes under it for each verse, the piece is called a “modified strophic” song.

In contrast, songs in which “each section of the text receives fresh music” are called through-composed. Some through-composed works have some repetition of musical material in them.

Many art songs use some version of the ABA form (also known as “song form”), with a beginning musical section, a contrasting middle section, and a return to the first section’s music.

Art Song Performance and Performers

Performance of art songs in recital requires some special skills for both the singer and pianist. The degree of intimacy “seldom equaled in other kinds of music” requires that the two performers “communicate to the audience the most subtle and evanescent emotions as expressed in the poem and music.” The two performers must agree on all aspects of the performance to create a unified partnership, making art song performance one of the “most sensitive type(s) of collaboration.”

Even though classical vocalists generally embark on successful performing careers as soloists by seeking out opera engagements, a number of today’s most prominent singers have built their careers primarily by singing art songs, including Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Thomas Quasthoff, Ian Bostridge, Matthias Goerne, Susan Graham, and Elly Ameling.

Pianists, too, have specialized in playing art songs with great singers. Gerald Moore, Graham Johnson, and Martin Katz are three such pianists who have specialized in accompanying art song performances.

Prominent Composers of Art Songs

British

John Dowland
Thomas Campion
Hubert Parry
Henry Purcell
Frederick Delius
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Roger Quilter
John Ireland
Ivor Gurney
Peter Warlock
Michael Head
Gerald Finzi
Benjamin Britten
Morfydd Llwyn Owen
Michael Tippett
Ian Venables
Judith Weir
George Butterworth
Francis George Scott

American

Amy Beach
Arthur Farwell
Charles Ives
Charles Griffes
Ernst Bacon
John Jacob Niles
John Woods Duke
Ned Rorem
Richard Faith
Samuel Barber
Aaron Copland
Lee Hoiby
William Bolcom
Daron Hagen
Richard Hundley
Emma Lou Diemer

Austrian and German

Joseph Haydn
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Franz Schubert
Hugo Wolf
Gustav Mahler
Alban Berg
Arnold Schoenberg
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Viktor Ullmann
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach
Ludwig van Beethoven
Johann Carl Gottfried Loewe
Fanny Mendelssohn
Felix Mendelssohn
Robert Schumann
Clara Schumann
Johannes Brahms
Richard Strauss
Hanns Eisler
Kurt Weill

French

Hector Berlioz
Charles Gounod
Pauline Viardot
César Franck
Camille Saint-Saëns
Georges Bizet
Emmanuel Chabrier
Henri Duparc
Jules Massenet
Gabriel Fauré
Claude Debussy
Erik Satie
Albert Roussel
Maurice Ravel
Jules Massenet
Darius Milhaud
Reynaldo Hahn
Francis Poulenc
Olivier Messiaen

Spanish

19th-Century Composers

Francisco Asenjo Barbieri
Ramón Carnicer y Batlle
Ruperto Chapí
Antonio de la Cruz
Manuel Fernández Caballero
Manuel García
Sebastián de Iradier
José León
Cristóbal Oudrid
Antonio Reparaz
Emilio Serrano y Ruiz
Fernando Sor
Joaquín Valverde
Amadeo Vives

20th-Century Composers

Enrique Granados
Manuel de Falla
Joaquín Rodrigo
Joaquín Turina

Italian

Claudio Monteverdi
Gioachino Rossini
Gaetano Donizetti
Vincenzo Bellini
Giuseppe Verdi
Amilcare Ponchielli
Paolo Tosti
Ottorino Respighi
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco
Luciano Berio
Lorenzo Ferrero

Eastern European

Franz Liszt—Hungary (nearly all his art song settings are of texts in non-Hungarian European languages, such as French and German)
Antonín Dvořák—Bohemia
Leoš Janáček—Bohemia (Czechoslovakia)
Béla Bartók—Hungary
Zoltán Kodály—Hungary
Frédéric Chopin—Poland
Stanisław Moniuszko—Poland

Nordic

Edvard Grieg—Norway (set German as well as Norse and Danish poetry)
Jean Sibelius—Finland (set both Finnish and Swedish)
Yrjö Kilpinen—Finland
Wilhelm Stenhammar—Sweden
Hugo Alfvén—Sweden
Carl Nielsen—Denmark

Russian

Mikhail Glinka
Alexander Borodin
César Cui
Nikolai Medtner
Modest Mussorgsky
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Alexander Glazunov
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Sergei Prokofiev
Igor Stravinsky
Dmitri Shostakovich

Ukrainian

Vasyl Barvinsky
Stanyslav Lyudkevych
Mykola Lysenko
Nestor Nyzhankivsky
Ostap Nyzhankivsky
Denys Sichynsky
Myroslav Skoryk
Ihor Sonevytsky
Yakiv Stepovy
Kyrylo Stetsenko

Early Romantic Era