Lied
Song piece with stanzas.
What it means
A Lied is a song piece of manageable length, usually on a strophic text. In its basic form every stanza is sung to the same music; one then speaks of a strophic Lied. Alongside this stands the varied strophic Lied, in which the music changes from stanza to stanza, and the through-composed Lied, which follows the course of the text and knows no repetition. The term thus covers very different forms, from the simple folk song to the artfully worked art song with piano accompaniment.
Musical use
The art song of the nineteenth century made the connection of poem, singing voice, and piano into a genre of its own, in which the accompaniment not only supports but interprets along and contributes its own images. Cycles bring several songs together into a larger context. Alongside this the Lied lives on as a communal form: in sacred song, in folk song, in popular music. Common to all is the close bond to the text, which distinguishes the Lied from instrumental genres; the form follows the language, not the other way around.
The art song for voice and piano had its flowering in the nineteenth century, especially with Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Wolf, and Strauss. The poems often came from Goethe, Heine, Eichendorff, and Mörike. A distinction is made between the strophic Lied, in which every stanza receives the same music, the varied strophic Lied, and the through-composed Lied, which follows the text line by line. Song cycles such as Schubert's Winterreise connect many songs into one narrative. Alongside the art song there is the folk song, which is passed on orally, and, in the twentieth century, chanson, song, and popular songs.
Performance practice
Begin with the text: read the poem aloud before you sing, and clarify meaning and stress. With strophic songs, decide deliberately how the stanzas are to differ — the same music demands different shaping with a different text. Work with the accompaniment as a partner, not as a backdrop; prelude, interlude, and postlude belong to the interpretation. Choose a key that suits your own range, since many songs are published in several versions. Keep the volume moderate: in the Lied, clarity of text carries more than volume.
Work out the song together, starting from the text.