Lullaby
Cradle song.
What it means
Lullaby is the English word for a cradle song: a song sung to help someone fall asleep. Characteristic are a calm, even tempo, a narrow range, a simple melody, and a rocking movement that often arises from a triple or compound metre. The accompaniment, where present, remains uniform and quiet. Such songs exist in almost all musical cultures, each with its own melodic types and texts.
Musical use
As a character piece, the lullaby has also found its way into art music without a text: berceuse and lullaby designate piano and orchestral pieces that take up the rocking model — a constant accompanying figure, a calm melody, few harmonic changes. The charm lies in the fact that within this restriction, subtle deviations have a strong effect. In vocal music, lullabies appear in song cycles, in opera, and in sacred music, for instance in Christmas compositions. Not infrequently the text carries a double meaning, so that the simplicity of the music stands in tension with the content.
Lullabies exist in all cultures; they are mostly soft, slow, and rocking in rhythm, often in six-eight or triple time. Well-known examples in art music are Brahms's lullaby and Chopin's berceuse. The even movement imitates rocking and calms.
Performance practice
Keep the tempo even and resist the temptation to shape too much; the effect arises from calm and repetition. Sing or play softly but with a supported sound, so that the tone does not become powerless. Watch for a constant accompanying figure without accents and keep dynamic differences small. Choose a comfortable register, since lullabies often sound best in the middle range. If the text carries a tension against the calm music, shape it sparingly — a small change of colour is enough.
Bear in mind that the uniformity of these pieces is their strength: whoever shapes too much takes away their calm. Keep tempo and accompanying figure stable and work with the smallest changes of colour.
Check, with arrangements, whether the original text is communicated, because it explains the shaping of the piece.