Page 157 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained

ROMANTIC 1810–1920 155

and beyond. The songs of such
French Romantic chanson composers as Antonín Dvorˇák
and Modest Mussorgsky often
The story of the art song in following works by composers have a nationalistic coloring.
France was largely colored such as Hector Berlioz, whose At the turn of the 20th century,
by the cultural landscape in Les Nuits d’été (Summer Nights,
Paris, where song—mélodie or 1841), a setting for six poems Gustav Mahler firmly put the
chanson—designed primarily for by Théophile Gautier, count genre in the public sphere, not
performance in private salons, among the first songs for voice least because he was one of the
existed in the shadows of opera. and orchestra in the repertoire, first composers to orchestrate his
French song faced an additional although they were written songs himself, as would Richard
problem: the irregular emphases for piano accompaniment Strauss. Several of Mahler’s songs
and rhythms of the language originally. While subsequently also found their way into his
made it difficult to set words influenced by German composer early symphonies, either complete
to music with naturalness. Richard Wagner, a uniquely or reworked as instrumental
Nevertheless, the genre in French branch of art song movements. Strauss, meanwhile,
France became more ambitious developed in the hands of composed songs throughout
and sophisticated toward Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, his long life and wrote his
the end of the 19th century, and Francis Poulenc.
valedictory masterpiece, The
Four Last Songs, for soprano
Romantics. Subsequent song the scene for his songs, as well as voice and orchestra, in 1948.
cycles often represented attempts postludes to summarize the mood. The art song also flourished
to build on Schubert’s legacy. Although Johannes Brahms wrote in France, Great Britain, and the
Robert Schumann was greatly two song cycles, both he and United States, especially in the
influenced by Schubert. His the Austrian composer Hugo 20th century, with such composers
own song cycles, many of them Wolf concentrated on grouping as Ralph Vaughan Williams, Gerald
composed in a burst of inspiration their songs into combinations Finzi, Charles Ives, and Benjamin
in 1840, the year of his marriage that were suitable for publication, Britten, who, as a fine pianist,
to pianist and composer Clara which did not necessarily imply made a speciality of performing
Wieck, tend to be on a smaller that they should be performed Schubert’s song cycles. ■
scale, offering a series of poetic together. Wolf, in particular, was
impressions or, in the case of remarkable for composing Lieder
Frauenliebe und Leben (“A woman’s almost exclusively. In his works,
love and life”), a broad picture of he successfully incorporated
a relationship. Schumann often Wagnerian harmonic complexity
wrote short piano preludes to set and psychological insight into the
form on the most intimate scale.

Song legacy
Schubert’s wider influence was
enormous, too, and a greater desire
to raise song to a higher artistic
There is no song plane coincided, in the second half
of Schubert’s of the 19th century, with attempts
from which one cannot to assert and define nationhood,
learn something. both in the German-speaking world
Johannes Brahms

Hugo Wolf wrote several hundred art
songs, often with deeply romantic and
personal themes, as captured on this
postcard depicting a song from his
Spanish Songbook of 1891.

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