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By Charles Osborne

What i've got tried during this booklet is a survey of tune; the type of tune which one unearths variously defined as 'concert', 'art', or occasionally even 'classical song'. 'Concert song' turns out the main priceless, definitely the least inexact or deceptive, of a few descriptions, in particular seeing that 'art song' sounds primly off­ placing, and 'classical song' particularly needs to be used in basic terms to consult songs written in the course of the classical interval, i. e. the 18th century. live performance music basically capability the type of songs one hears sung at concert events or recitals. Addressing myself to the overall music-lover who, although he possesses no targeted wisdom of the tune literature, is never­ theless adequate in songs and their singers to wait recitals of Lieder or of songs in a number of languages, i've got obviously restrained myself to that time period during which the majority of those songs used to be composed, notwithstanding now not unavoidably simply to these composers whose songs have survived to be remembered in recital programmes at the present time. i assume this to be approximately the 3 centuries coated through the years 1650-1950, even though many of the songs we, as audiences, recognize and love have been composed in the midst of this era, in different phrases within the nineteenth century.

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From the Preface :

This e-book illustrates a set of song manuscripts which used to be made in recent times to learn the root for modern functionality Arts. the gathering was resolute by means of situations instead of any means of choice. hence it indicates the various instructions during which track notation is now going. The manuscripts should not prepared in accordance with types of tune, yet alphabetically in response to the composer's identify. No explanatory details is given.

The textual content for the publication is the results of a technique applying I-Ching likelihood operations. those decided what number phrases relating to his paintings have been to be written by way of or approximately which of 2 hundred and sixty-nine composers. the place those passages (never greater than sixty-four phrases, occasionally just one) were in particular written for this publication, they're preceded via a paragraph signal and via the author's identify. different comments have been selected or written through the editors - John Cage and Alison Knowles. not just the variety of phrases and the writer, however the typography too - letter dimension, depth, and typeface - have been all decided accidentally operations. This method was once so one can reduce the variation among textual content and illustrations. The composition of the pages is the paintings of Alison Knowles.

A precedent for the textual content is the Questionnaire. (The composers have been requested to jot down approximately notation or some· factor proper to it. ) A precedent for the absence of data which characterizes this publication is the modern aquarium (no longer a dismal hallway with each one species in its personal illuminated tank separated from the others and named in Latin): a wide glass condo with all of the fish in it swimming as in an ocean. the gathering of manuscripts constitutes an archive, the contents of that are indexed on the finish of this booklet. The editors are thankful to the numerous composers and song publishers who've made this presentation of mid-twentieth century tune notation attainable.

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Extra resources for The Concert Song Companion: A Guide to the Classical Repertoire

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Schmidt's poem is, however, almost the perfect expression of the romantic Sehnsucht and Weltschmerz which were such prominent features of the Sturm und Drang movement. The wanderer has come from far away. To him the sun seems cold, the flowers faded. ', and seeks in vain the land which speaks his own language. A ghostly voice tells him 'There, where you are not, that is where fortune resides'. A poem of splendid gesture, and Schubert responded to it by composing a scena, but not too elaborate a one, and by providing a slightly self-pitying but nevertheless beautiful tune for 'Ich wandIe still, bin wenig froh'.

This is somewhat of an over-statement, although Loewe does make a first-rate miniature drama from the not particularly original or compelling poem. The dancing of the elves in the marshes is depicted brilliantly in the piano part, and the various characters-Oluf, his mother, his bride-to-be and the elfking's daughter-are all strongly characterized. Some of Loewe's early settings of Goethe are more successful than others. Of 'Gutmann und Gutweib', Goethe's lighthearted adaptation of a Scottish ballad, he made somewhat heavy weather, but some of his more lyrical settings are, of their kind, remarkably beautiful.

Under the guise of writing about the world of the past, the poet produced an unbearably painful cri de coeur which Schubert translated into music which is at once noble and moving. Of the lighter songs, the water music, 'Erlafsee', 'Auf der Donau' and 'Am Strome' are all attractive examples. The nine settings of Matthias Claudius (1740-18 I 5) include the famous 'Wiegenlied' which Richard Strauss unconsciously borrowed for the music of Naiad, Dryad and Echo in Ariadne auf Naxos, and 'Der Tod und das Madchen' which is also justly celebrated, its simplicity masking a resonance and depth which even Schubert rarely achieved.

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