Romantic Song

German Music

Course 1 · Chapter 4 · Romantic Song & Symphony

In the nineteenth century concert music moved from the court and the church into the home, the concert hall and the middle-class parlour. This chapter follows that shift through the German art song (Lied), the piano and the symphony, and through four figures: Robert Schumann, Clara Schumann, Felix Mendelssohn and Johannes Brahms. It also returns to the Bach revival of Chapter 2, because the nineteenth century did more than any other period to build the "land of music" story. Names and dates are from general knowledge and flagged "check".

The Lied

What it is

A song for solo voice and piano, setting a German poem, in which the piano is an equal partner and not just an accompaniment. The word Lied is simply "song", and its plural is Lieder.

The poets

Goethe, Heine, Eichendorff, Müller and others supplied texts, so the Lied ties music to the great age of German poetry (check the poets and the settings).

Schubert's context

Franz Schubert (1797 to 1828) was Viennese, so he is context here, not a subject of the course (Chapter 1). His songs, such as "Erlkönig" and the cycle Winterreise (check), set the model that German composers followed.

  • The song cycle. A group of songs that tell a connected story, such as Schumann's Dichterliebe (1840; check).
  • The home. Many Lieder were meant for the drawing-room with a piano, with a growing middle class buying printed music and pianos (check how far).
  • The language. Lieder depend on German poetry, which is one reason they are less often performed for audiences outside German-speaking countries than symphonies.

Four Figures

Composer (check dates)PlaceKnown for
Robert Schumann (1810 to 1856)Leipzig, Dresden, DüsseldorfPiano music, Lieder and symphonies; also a critic who championed younger composers; he suffered from mental illness in his last years.
Clara Schumann (1819 to 1896)Leipzig; toured widely; later FrankfurtOne of the leading pianists of her century, a composer, and a teacher; she shaped what audiences heard of her husband's and Brahms's music.
Felix Mendelssohn (1809 to 1847)Born in Hamburg; Berlin, LeipzigOrchestral and choral works, conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus orchestra, and the leader of the Bach revival; from a Jewish family converted to Protestantism.
Johannes Brahms (1833 to 1897)Born in Hamburg; settled in ViennaSymphonies, chamber music, piano works and A German Requiem; seen as heir to Beethoven and Bach.

The Bach Revival, Again

  • 1829. Mendelssohn conducted the St Matthew Passion in Berlin, a performance remembered as a turning point (Chapter 2; check the details).
  • The edition. The Bach Society (founded 1850; check) set about publishing his complete works over the following decades.
  • The idea of a canon. Concert programmes began to centre on a repertoire of "masterworks" from the past, with Bach, Beethoven and Mozart at its core. This is a nineteenth-century habit that still shapes concert life.
  • The national angle. Admirers presented Bach, Beethoven and later Brahms as an unbroken German line, an idea that fitted the growing national feeling of the time (check, see Chapters 5 and 10).
Women and the canon Clara Schumann was a major performer and composer, and Fanny Mendelssohn (Felix's sister) also composed a large body of work, much of it unpublished in her lifetime (check). Nineteenth-century expectations about what women could publicly do shaped what was performed and printed, and modern scholars have worked to restore their music to view. The story of "the great composers" is partly a story of who was allowed to be one.
A British comparison Mendelssohn was greatly admired in Britain, visited ten times, and wrote the "Scottish" Symphony and the "Hebrides" overture after a trip to Scotland in 1829 (check). Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were fans, and his oratorio Elijah was first performed in Birmingham in 1846 (check). He is a case of German music shaped by, and shaping, British taste.
Check the details Dates, places and the exact roles of each composer are from general knowledge. Mendelssohn's religious background and the later Nazi attempt to erase him (Chapter 6) need careful sources. Verify against a modern musicology reference before quoting.

Exercises

Exercise 1

Explain what makes a Lied different from a song with accompaniment, and why poetry mattered to it.

→ Solution
Exercise 2

Choose Clara Schumann or Mendelssohn and write a short paragraph on how their career shaped what audiences know of German music.

→ Solution
Exercise 3

Describe how the nineteenth-century idea of a "canon" of masterworks affected which music is performed today, giving one benefit and one cost.

→ Solution

Quick Reference

  • The Lied: solo voice and piano, a German poem, piano as equal partner (check)
  • The four: Robert and Clara Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms (check dates)
  • Revival: the 1829 Passion performance and the Bach Society edition (check)
  • The canon: a nineteenth-century habit of building concerts around past masterworks
  • The caution: the canon excludes more than it seems, women especially