- British Song Fa La La – Searchable database of English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Canadian, Australian and South African songs. Publishers’ addresses and a booklist.
- Contributions to the Lieder Repertoire 1900-1999 – A list of published compositions available in score form.
- DISCUSSION GROUP Links – Classical Music Discussion Group Links Page. Includes links to the majordomo of the Brahms and Schumann Lists. These lists not yet reviewed.
- Flying Inkpot, The – Classical music reviews on recordings and books. Also miscellaneous articles. Searchable archives. Includes Lieder.
- French Art of Song, The – Article by Maurice Richter on the French art song with reference to three of its greatest interpreters. From La Folia, Vol 2 no 1.
- Ihr Lieder! Ihr meine guten Lieder! – A performer’s guide to musical settings for one or two voices of the poetry of Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) by Peter W. Shea.
- Marilyn Horne Foundation, The – Presents vocal recitals and related educational activities across the United States. Educational programs, newsletter.
- On the Enjoyment of Challenges – Interview with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in English translation.
- Schubert Lieder on CD, Part 1 – A guide by Maurice Richter. Annotates the recommended recordings with comments on the Lieder.
- Classical Music on the Web (UK) – A large number of Composer Profiles (specializing in British composers), Up to 200 CD reviews each month, live concert reviews, and interviews.
- Classical Music Review: New Releases – Reviews of contemporary and traditional classical music. Updated monthly.
- Classical Recordings Guide – Reviews by Amilcar Pereira. LP, LD, and CD formats, focused on sound quality.
- Classical Reviews – Offers rated reviews, with archives.
- British Imperialistic Anthems – Lyrics, MIDI and Real Audio files.
- Classical Music Has Words – Presents lyrics to compositions previously lyricless. They range from several phrases to entire songs set to works by Pachelbel, Handel, Grieg, and Bach. Also includes instructins for playing several songs and facts about the music and the people behind it.
- The Lied and Song Texts Page – Free web archive of many texts (lyrics) to Lieder and other classical art songs in more than a dozen languages. Also translations to English included.
Lied (plural Lieder) is a German word, literally meaning «song»; among English speakers, however, it is used primarily as a term for European classical music songs, also known as art songs. Typically, Lieder are arranged for a single singer and piano. Sometimes Lieder are gathered in a Liederkreis or «song cycle» – a series of songs tied by a single narrative or theme. The composers Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann are most closely associated with this genre of classical music. Since the German word Lied simply means “song,” Germans use the more specific term Kunstlied to refer to this.
History
Amongst German speakers, the term Lied has a much older and longer history, ranging from 12th century troubadour songs (Minnesang) via folk songs (Volkslieder) and church hymns (Kirchenlieder) to 20th-century satirical or protest songs (Kabarettlieder, Protestlieder).
In Germany, the great age of song came in the 19th century. German and Austrian composers had written music for voice with accompaniment before then, but it was with the flowering of German literature in the Classical and Romantic eras that composers found high inspiration in poetry that created the genre known as the Lied. The beginnings of this tradition are seen in the songs of Mozart and Beethoven, but it is with Schubert that a new balance is found between words and music, a new absorption into the music of the sense of the words. Schubert wrote over 600 songs, some of them in sequences or song cycles that relate a story – adventure of the soul rather than the body. The tradition was continued by Schumann, Brahms, and Hugo Wolf, and on into the 20th century by Strauss and Mahler. The body of song created in the Lied tradition, like that of the Italian madrigal three centuries before, represents one of the richest products of human sensibility.
Other national traditions
The Lied tradition is closely linked with the actual sound of the German language. But there are parallels elsewhere noticeably in France, with the melodies of such composers as Fauré, Debussy and Francis Poulenc, and in Russia, with the songs of Mussorgsky in particular. England too had a flowering of song in the 20th century represented by Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten.
