# Three song cycles



## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

On my blog this week, three 20th century (well, one of them almost from the 20th...) cycles in three different languages for female voice and orchestra
http://www.talkclassical.com/blogs/itywltmt/433-three-song-cycles.html

Enjoy!


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## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

Quote from my blog this week:



> Can we draw a parallel between the art soings of the 19th century (notably those of Schubert) and the "contemporary" art songs, or should we really compare them to the ballads of the trobadours of the 1960's. Are Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney true heirs of that tradition, or is that really limited to Richard Strauss, or Igor Stravinsky?


Do you have any thoughts on that subject? Are the art songs of the 19th century the "pop songs" of that era, or something unique and specific to classical music as we have come to know it?


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

There have been cross-over attempts between the two, perhaps best known is Philip Glass' Songs from liquid days.


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## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

I would not say that contemporary art songs were limited to Richard Strauss and Stravinsky. There are a number of song cycles by Benjamin Britten, Samuel Barber, Shostakovich and Dominick Argento to mention only a few. The art song is not dead by any means.


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles is the closest I've heard popular music come to an 'art song'. Imo popular music in general doesn't sound anything like the heir to the lied. It rarely references that tradition at all.


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

In German Lied, its counterparts in other lands, and what we call Art Song, the focus was (and perhaps, still is) the POETRY and the music was wedded powerfully to the idea of expressing or exalting the poem. Given that - I don't see any connection with Bob Dylan who has used the 12-bar blues progression and variants for almost all his many songs. His songs _are_ about the words, the melodies are memorable some of the time, but the harmony is perfunctory most, if not all of the time (and he is still a great American Songwriter). Joni Mitchell, on the other hand, has a superb ear for melody AND harmony AND poetry, so I can hear the sense of 'art song' in her work. It really depends on the relationship between the music and the words.



itywltmt said:


> Quote from my blog this week:
> 
> Do you have any thoughts on that subject? Are the art songs of the 19th century the "pop songs" of that era, or something unique and specific to classical music as we have come to know it?


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## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

Thanks for those of you who have offered an opinion so far. I am somewhat surprised with the responses - a tad "conservative" if you ask me...

I recall a television interview (or a documentary) with Sir Paul McCartney telling the story of hopping a cab (during his _Beatles _years), and having a conversation with the cabbie who had a Mozart score in the front seat. The cabbie explained to his fare that he "couldn`t possibly understand Mozart", to which Sir Paul replied that he could, because he believed Mozart and he were producing "popular music", that is the music that resonated with the people of their time. One could go as far as saying Sir Paul's songs of that era are indeed "classics", but that's another matter altogether.

That is, in a way, the rationale for my original POV: could we not view the great Schubert song cycles as just "popular music of the era", expressing the ideas of the time? The parallel to the trobadours of the 1960`s, and in French Canada, the generation of _chansonniers _(trad. baladeers) of the Quiet Revolution (Vigneault, Leclerc, and later Piche and Charlebois) resonates with me: people who had something to say, said it with music, and it resonated with their contemporaries and provided a particular music genre very specific to that time. It may be far fetched to compare the _Winterreise _to, say, Neil Young's _Harvest _or a Pink Floyd concept album, but can't you see the parallelism?

It is not to say they tried to adapt the Art Song to their era, but rather that they used lyrics and music to convey messages and emotions not unlike Schubert, or Schumann, or Brahms, or others from the preceeding centuries.

My thoughts, (apparently) not necessarily yours...


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## norman bates (Aug 18, 2010)

itywltmt said:


> Do you have any thoughts on that subject? Are the art songs of the 19th century the "pop songs" of that era, or something unique and specific to classical music as we have come to know it?


 if we not consider the modern classical composers (britten, rorem, silvestrov, barber, poulenc, warlock etc) the songs of the great american songbook are the modern equivalent of the lieder. Gerswhin, Alec Wilder, Richard Rodgers, Hoagy Carmichael, Vernon Duke, Leonard Bernstein, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Hugh Martin, Earl Zindars, Ellington, etc.

In modern pop music i think that Joni Mitchell, Donald Fagen, Chris Dedrick, Brian Wilson are more "authors" (at least in a musical sense) than musicians like Dylan.


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