Acknowledgements
This unit was written by Dr Robert Philip Except for third party materials and otherwise stated (see terms and conditions), this content is made available under a Creative Commons...
View ArticleReferences
Brown, M.J.E. (1966) Schubert: A Critical Biography, London, Macmillan.Deutsch, O.E. (1946) Schubert: A Documentary Biography, London, Dent.Fischer-Dieskau, D. (1976) Schubert: A Biographical Study of...
View ArticleNext steps
After completing this unit you may wish to study another OpenLearn Study Unit or find out more about this topic. Here are some suggestions:Delacroix (A207_6) Goya (A207_4) History and the ArtsIf you...
View ArticleDiscography
Details of the recordings of Schubert's lieder provided in this unit are as follows:'Heidenrölein'Irmgard Seefreid, Hermann von Nordberg (rec 1947), TESTAMENT SBT 1026'Wanderers Nachtlied'Hans Hotter,...
View Article5 Conclusion
Robert Wilkinson (2005) has suggested that Romanticism in the end became ‘the dominant view of art in Europe, and we are to this day its heirs’. This is nowhere truer than in song. Even if you have...
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4.5.2 ‘Ganymed’ (‘Ganymede’)
‘Ganymed’ is another through-composed setting of a poem inspired by ancient Greek mythology. Ganymede was a boy of exceptional beauty, and Goethe's poem describes the feelings of the young lad as he is...
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4.5.1 ‘Prometheus’
Both the poem and the song are quite different from the others considered in this unit. The poem does not rhyme, and its rhythmic patterns are irregular. It is more like an extract from a drama than a...
View Article4.5 Two mythological songs: ‘Prometheus’ (1819) and...
Goethe's poem ‘Heidenröslein’, with which we began, is a mock folksong; ‘Erlkönig’ is a mock ballad along the lines of Scottish models. They are, so to speak, poems in fancy dress. ‘Prometheus’ and...
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4.4 ‘Erlkönig’ (‘The Erl-king’, 1815)
Exercise 6Before continuing with the unit, read the English translation of ‘Erlkönig’ by clicking on the link below. The translation attempts to stay close to the rhythm and rhyming-scheme of Goethe's...
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4.3.1 ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’ (‘Gretchen at the...
This celebrated song was Schubert's first setting of a poem by Goethe. Written when he was only 17, it was one of the few songs to be sold in quite large numbers during Schubert's lifetime – though he...
View Article4.3 Voice and accompaniment
One thing that is clear from the Lieder we have already considered is that Schubert's writing for the piano is a crucial element of his skill as a songwriter. Sometimes, and throughout his career, he...
View Article4.2 Simplicity and complexity
As we have already discovered, the concept of ‘simplicity’ is not a simple matter. We saw earlier in the unit that the simplicity of folk-song is not the same as classical simplicity, though both...
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4.1.1 ‘Heidenröslein’ (‘Wild Rose’, 1815)...
The selection in this unit begins with songs composed to two of Goethe's best-known poems (several composers other than Schubert wrote settings of them). Schubert's versions are both very short and...
View Article4.1 A note on the translations and scores
The German text and a parallel English translation of each of the songs we shall study in this unit will be available as attached pdf documents. The styles of translation vary, depending on the style...
View Article3 Schubert and the Lied
Schubert set to music the words of a wide range of poets, from those who were internationally famous to others who were known only locally and were among his group of friends. Schubert was capable of...
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2.2 Schubert and Johann Michael Vogl
By 1825 Schubert's painter friend Moritz von Schwind was reporting, ‘There is a Schubertiad at Enderes's each week – that is to say, Vogl sings’ (quoted in Deutsch, 1946, p. 401). Schwind names seven...
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2.1 Introduction
If Goethe is regarded as the greatest German poet of his time, Franz Schubert (see Figure 1) is generally accepted as the greatest songwriter of the period. But their careers and experience could not...
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1 Schubert: introduction
This unit focuses on a selection of short poems in German that were set to music by Franz Schubert (1797–1828) for a single voice with piano, a genre known as ‘Lieder’ (the German for ‘songs’). These...
View ArticleLearning outcomes
By the end of your work on this unit you should:have learned about Schubert's place as a composer in early nineteenth-century Vienna;have learned about the place of Schubert in the history of German...
View ArticleIntroduction
This unit looks at a selection of short poems in German that were set to music by Franz Schubert (1797–1828) for a single voice with piano, a genre known as ‘Lieder’ (the German for ‘songs’). Once they...
View Article