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A YOUNG PERFORMER'S GUIDE TO ART SONG
(Concert Music for the Voice)
A fourteen-part series for the emerging classical singer
and their associate artists.
The series focuses upon the acknowledged masters of the Art Song genre and suggests tools and methods that may be used by young performers in the preparation and interpretation of their material.
1. INTRODUCTION
This introductory module suggests various strategies that the young interpreter might employ in the preparation of their material. Considerations of style, form, point-of-view, symbolism etc are given practical application with the provision of two case studies at the end of the module.
2. BAROQUE
In this module, we see how the emancipation
of the solo voice was intimately linked with the
vitality of the baroque and with the
dramatic declamation of text.
3. PRECURSORS OF THE LIED
We now begin to examine the rise of Lieder.
A new poetic ideal, drawn from the simplicity,
immediacy and emotional power of folk song proved to be an ideal medium for the birth of this
enduring genre.
4. SCHUBERT (Part 1)
The next two videos are dedicated to the greatest
of all song writers, Franz Schubert.
The first one focuses upon the varied use of form in his Lieder shown in some of his early Goethe settings as well as his mastery of the ballad.
5. SCHUBERT (Continued)
In this second part on the Lieder of Franz Schubert, the poetry of his friend Johann Baptist Mayrhofer is featured and we also look at some of his later settings.
6. SCHUMANN and BRAHMS
Stimulated by the Lieder tradition advanced by Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms add new perspectives to the genre, modifying and enriching its legacy for ensuing generations.
7. HUGO WOLF
Musical language has undergone a seismic shift spearheaded by Wagner's revolutionary innovations in harmony and style. Hugo Wolf applies this influence almost exclusively to Lieder, with his songbooks to poetry by Goethe, Heine, Mörike and others rivaling those of Schubert in quality and quantity.
8. GUSTAV MAHLER
Known mainly as a conductor in his own lifetime, Mahler's fame a symphonist would later place him in the top tier of composers of this form.
Yet it was song that inspired his symphonic imagination, and the orchestra that was most adept in accompanying his songs.
9. RICHARD STRAUSS
A great lover of the human voice, particularly the soprano voice, Strauss not only celebrated it in his many operas, but contributed significantly to the evolving nature of the Lied, especially the Orchestral Lied.
10. FRENCH ART SONG (PART 1)
While blossoming later than its German counterpart, French poetry forged a similar innovative path with the Symbolist movement.
Key figures such as Charles Baudelaire, Paul Verlaine, Arthur Rimbaud, and Stéphane Mallarmé led the way and composers like Gabriel Fauré, Henri Duparc and Claude Debussy responded, giving birth to the French Mélodie.
11. FRENCH ART SONG (PART 2)
The beginning of the C20th was a turbulant period that saw France affected, more than most, both politically and socially. It is no surprise then that it now rivaled Vienna as the leader of the avant- garde. Dada and Surrealism turned traditional art on its head, and composers like Maurice Ravel, and particularly Francis Poulenc, teamed with poets like Tristan Klingsor, Guillaume Apollinaire and Paul Eluard in advancing French Art Song.
12. ENGLISH SONG
The rise of Nationalism was a global characteristic in the late part of the C19th. The British Isles, an imperial nation and an industrial powerhouse, maintained a conservative outlook in life and art, established and sustained throughout the long reign of Queen Victoria.
New perspectives were offered in the early C20th, with artists, such as Ralph Vaughan Williams, seeking out and reviving traditional elements such as folksong.
13. BENJAMIN BRITTEN
From the beginning Britten displayed a love of the human voice, an affection that was sustained throughout his life. From the start he eschewed the nationalist tendencies of the Vaughan Williams school, forging a more cosmopolitan and eclectic pathway, inspired by the text setting of his predecessor Henry Purcell. This, and his sensitivity to poetry, set him apart as one of the most significant and enduring contributors to the Art Song repertoire in the C20th.
14. THE ART SONG IN AMERICA
..... in preparation.
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