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52-560: Ten Blake Songs is a song cycle for tenor or soprano voice and oboe composed over the Christmas period of 1957 by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958), for the 1958 film The Vision of William Blake by Guy Brenton for Morse Films. The first nine songs are from Songs of Innocence and of Experience by the English poet and visionary William Blake (1757–1827); the tenth (Eternity) is from Several Questions Answered (No1 & No2) from

104-638: A Hero (1981), Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens (1989), Next Year in Jerusalem (1985), and A Year of Birds (1995) by Malcolm Williamson , Maury Yeston 's December Songs (1991), commissioned by Carnegie Hall for its centennial year celebration, Honey and Rue by André Previn (composed for the American soprano Kathleen Battle ). David Conte 's American Death Ballads (2015). Alex Weiser 's song cycle in Yiddish and English, and all

156-491: A Memory and The Astonishing , as well as Marvin Gaye 's classic soul album What's Going On . The R&B singer Raphael Saadiq 's 2019 album, Jimmy Lee , is composed as a song cycle with personal narratives thematizing issues affecting African Americans, including addiction, stress, domestic conflict, AIDS, perpetual financial hardship, and mass incarceration. One of the earliest song cycle musical theater works

208-485: A combination of solo songs mingled with choral pieces. The number of songs in a song cycle may be as brief as two songs or as long as 30 or more songs. The term "song cycle" did not enter lexicography until 1865, in Arrey von Dommer's edition of Koch’s Musikalisches Lexikon , but works definable in retrospect as song cycles existed long before then. One of the earliest examples may be the set of seven Cantigas de amigo by

260-410: A more educated middle class, "who were gradually supplanting the aristocracy as the main patrons of the arts". Since these songs were relatively small-scale works, like the lyric poetry used for their musical settings, they were often published in collections, and consequently borrowed various poetic terms to mark their groupings: Reihe (series), Kranz (ring), Zyklus (cycle) or Kreis (circle). In

312-408: A new, undisguised access to the topicality of old texts and the core of the music." There are numerous recordings. Some videotaped performances are also available, including mezzo-soprano Christa Ludwig with Charles Spencer (1994, Art Haus Musik), several by Fischer-Dieskau, one by Hermann Prey with pianist Helmut Deutsch , and a version by Thomas Quasthoff and pianist Daniel Barenboim filmed at

364-424: A point of resignation. Finally he encounters a derelict street musician, the only instance in the cycle in which another character is present. The mysterious and ominous nature of the musician, along with the question posed in the last lines, leave the fate of the wanderer open to interpretation. The two Schubert cycles (primarily for male voice), of which Winterreise is the more mature, are absolute fundamentals of

416-407: A sequence occasionally attempted by Hans Joachim Moser and Günther Baum. Schubert's original group of settings therefore closed with the dramatic cadence of "Irrlicht", "Rast", "Frühlingstraum" and "Einsamkeit", and his second sequence begins with "Die Post". Dramatically, the first half is the sequence from the leaving of the beloved's house, and the second half the torments of reawakening hope and

468-576: A short series of songs that tell a story or focus on a particular theme. Some musicians also blend tracks together, so that the start of the next song continues from the preceding one. Modern examples of this can be found in James Pankow 's rock opera Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon (for Chicago on their self-titled second album ) Pink Floyd 's rock opera The Wall , Dream Theater 's progressive metal albums Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from

520-523: A song cycle—and the Kerner Lieder (Op. 35), a Liederreihe (literally "song row") on poems by Justinus Kerner. Brahms composed settings (Op. 33) of verses from Ludwig Tieck 's novel "Magelone", and modern performances usually include some sort of connecting narration. He also wrote Vier ernste Gesänge ("Four Serious Songs"), Op. 121 (1896). Mahler 's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen , Kindertotenlieder , and Das Lied von der Erde expand

572-616: Is a song cycle for voice and piano by Franz Schubert ( D . 911, published as Op . 89 in 1828), a setting of 24 poems by German poet Wilhelm Müller . It is the second of Schubert's two song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne Müllerin (D. 795, Op. 25, 1823). Both were originally written for tenor voice but are frequently transposed to other vocal ranges, a precedent set by Schubert himself. The two works pose interpretative demands on listeners and performers due to their scale and structural coherence. Although Ludwig van Beethoven 's cycle An die ferne Geliebte ( To

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624-559: Is documented in a book by Elizabeth Norman McKay, Schubert: The Piano and Dark Keys : "Towards the end of 1822 ... Schubert was very sick, having contracted the syphilis that inevitably was to affect the remainder of his life: his physical and mental health, and the music he was to compose." As detailed below, he worked on Winterreise as he was dying of syphilis. In addition to his friend Franz von Schober , Schubert's friends who often attended his Schubertiaden or musical sessions included Eduard von Bauernfeld , Joseph von Spaun , and

676-406: Is not merely a collection of songs upon a single theme (lost or unrequited love) but is in effect one single dramatic monologue, lasting over an hour in performance. Although some individual songs are sometimes included separately in recitals (e.g. "Gute Nacht", "Der Lindenbaum" and "Der Leiermann"), it is a work which is usually presented in its entirety. The intensity and the emotional inflections of

728-402: Is somewhat ambiguous. After his beloved falls for another, the grief-stricken young man steals away from town at night and follows the river and steep ways to a charcoal burner's hut, where he rests before moving on. He comes across a village, passes a crossroads, and arrives at a cemetery. Here being denied even the death on which he has become fixated, he defiantly renounces faith before reaching

780-712: Is the one included as part of the Bärenreiter New Schubert Edition , edited by Walther Dürr , volume 3, which offers the songs in versions for high, medium and low voices. In this edition the key relationships are preserved: only one transposition is applied to the whole cycle. The following table names the keys used in different editions. Schubert's Winterreise has had a marked influence on several key works, including Gustav Mahler 's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen and Benjamin Britten 's Night-piece . In 1991, Maury Yeston composed both

832-507: The Winterreise may have gone hungry to bed, but he was a happy artist. Schubert's last task in life was the correction of the proofs for part 2 of Winterreise , and his thoughts while correcting those of the last song, "Der Leiermann", when his last illness was only too evident, can only be imagined. However, he had heard the whole cycle performed by Vogl (which received a much more enthusiastic reception), though he did not live to see

884-561: The 13th-century Galician jongleur Martin Codax . Jeffrey Mark identified the group of dialect songs 'Hodge und Malkyn' from Thomas Ravenscroft 's The Briefe Discourse (1614) as the first of a number of early 17th-century examples in England. A song cycle is similar to a song collection, and the two can be difficult to distinguish. Some type of coherence , however, is regarded as a necessary attribute of song cycles. It may derive from

936-649: The Distant Beloved ) was published earlier, in 1816, Schubert's cycles hold the foremost place in the genre's history. The autograph manuscript of the cycle is preserved in the Morgan Library & Museum . Winterreise was composed in two parts, each with twelve songs, the first part in February 1827 and the second in October 1827. The two parts were also published separately by Tobias Haslinger ,

988-644: The French cycle tradition in the later 20th century. Perhaps the first English song cycle was Arthur Sullivan 's The Window; or, The Song of the Wrens (1871), to a text of eleven poems by Tennyson . In the early 20th century, Vaughan Williams composed his famous song cycle, the Songs of Travel . Other song cycles by Vaughan Williams are The House of Life on sonnets by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and On Wenlock Edge on poems from A. E. Housman 's A Shropshire Lad ,

1040-1298: The German Lied , and have strongly influenced not only the style but also the vocal method and technique in German classical music as a whole. The resources of intellect and interpretative power required to deliver them, in the chamber or concert hall, challenge the greatest singers. Besides re-ordering Müller's songs, Schubert made a few changes to the words: verse 4 of "Erstarrung" in Müller's version read [Schubert's text bracketed]: "Mein Herz ist wie erfroren [erstorben]" ("frozen" instead of "dead"); "Irrlicht" verse 2 read "...unsre Freuden, unsre Wehen [Leiden]" ("pains" instead of "sorrows") and "Der Wegweiser" verse 3 read "Weiser stehen auf den Strassen [Wegen]" ("roads" instead of "paths"). These have all been restored in Mandyczewski 's edition (the widely available Dover score) and are offered as alternative readings in Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau 's revision of Max Friedlaender 's edition for Peters . A few of

1092-557: The Harper's grief, to Mayrhofer's nostalgia. It is not surprising to hear of Schubert's haggard look in the Winterreise period; but not depression, rather a kind of sacred exhilaration... we see him practically gasping with fearful joy over his tragic Winterreise – at his luck in the subject, at the beauty of the chance which brought him his collaborator back, at the countless fresh images provoked by his poetry of fire and snow, of torrent and ice, of scalding and frozen tears. The composer of

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1144-1244: The Scottish composer James MacMillan (1997) is a more recent example. Trevor Hold wrote numerous song cycles, including many setting his own words, such as The Image Stays (1979), River Songs (1982) and Book of Beasts (1984). The English composer Robin Holloway 's many song cycles include From High Windows ( Philip Larkin ) (1977), Wherever We May Be ( Robert Graves ) (1980) and Retreats and Advances ( A.S.J. Tessimond ) (2016). His pupil Peter Seabourne 's five song cycles include Sonnets to Orpheus (2016) setting eleven poems of Rainer Maria Rilke . Stephen Hough has written three cycles: Herbstlieder (Rilke) (2007), Dappled Things (Wilde and Hopkins) (2013), and Other Love Songs (2010) for four singers and piano duet. Graham Waterhouse composed several song cycles , based on texts by Shakespeare , James Joyce , and Irish female writers, among others. American examples include Samuel Barber 's Hermit Songs (1953), Mélodies Passagères , and Despite and Still , and Songfest by Leonard Bernstein , Hammarskjöld Portrait (1974), Les Olympiques (1976), Tribute to

1196-634: The accompaniment from piano to orchestra. Wolf made the composition of song collections by a single poet something of a specialty, although only the shorter Italian Songbook and Spanish Songbook are performed at a single sitting, and Eisler 's Hollywood Liederbuch also falls into the category of anthology. Das Buch der hängenden Gärten by Schoenberg and Krenek 's Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen are important 20th-century examples. Wilhelm Killmayer composed several song cycles , on lyrics by Sappho , French Renaissance poets, German Romantic poets, and contemporary poets. The tradition

1248-414: The beloved is last directly mentioned only halfway into the work – and the literal winter's journey is arguably at least in part allegorical for this psychological and spiritual one. Wintry imagery of cold, darkness, and barrenness consistently serve to mirror the feelings of the isolated wanderer. The cycle consists of a monodrama from the point of view of the wandering protagonist, in which concrete plot

1300-403: The case with any other songs." He then, with a voice full of feeling, sang the entire Winterreise for us. We were altogether dumbfounded by the sombre mood of these songs, and Schober said that one song only, "Der Lindenbaum", had pleased him. Thereupon Schubert leaped up and replied: "These songs please me more than all the rest, and in time they will please you as well." It is argued that in

1352-480: The coherence within a song cycle must therefore be examined "in individual cases". Although most European countries began developing the art song genre by the beginning of the 19th century, the rise of Lieder in "Austria and Germany have outweighed all others in terms of influence." German-language song composition at the end of 18th century shifted from accessible, Strophic form , more traditional folk songs to 19th century settings of more sophisticated poetry for

1404-545: The days were purple (2019), was a 2020 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize . Mussorgsky wrote Sunless (1874), The Nursery (1868–72) and Songs and Dances of Death (1875–77), and Shostakovich wrote cycles on English and Yiddish poets, as well as Michelangelo and Alexander Pushkin . In 2020, Rodrigo Ruiz became the first Mexican composer known to have written a song cycle. Ruiz's Venus & Adonis sets Shakespeare's eponymous narrative poem in what became

1456-470: The early 1890s, La chanson d'Ève , premiered complete in 1910, and L'horizon chimérique (1921). Chabrier 's four 'Barnyard songs' (1889) "introduced a new note into contemporary French music" and prefigured Ravel's Histoires naturelles . Poulenc produced a long line of song cycles, from Le Bestiaire (1919), the Poèmes de Ronsard of 1925, Chansons Gaillardes (anonymous 17th-century texts) of

1508-537: The final publication, nor the opinion of the Wiener Theaterzeitung : Müller is naive, sentimental, and sets against outward nature a parallel of some passionate soul-state which takes its colour and significance from the former. Schubert's music is as naive as the poet's expressions; the emotions contained in the poems are as deeply reflected in his own feelings, and these are so brought out in sound that no-one can sing or hear them without being touched to

1560-572: The first few decades of the 1800s, the collections of poetry and the subsequent song settings took on more underlying coherence and dramatic plot, giving rise to the song cycle. This coherence allowed the song genre to be elevated to a "higher form", serious enough to be compared with symphonies and cycles of lyric piano pieces. Two of the earliest examples of the German song cycle were composed in 1816: Beethoven 's An die ferne Geliebte (Op. 98), and Die Temperamente beim Verluste der Geliebten (J. 200-3, \Op. 46) by Carl Maria von Weber . The genre

1612-408: The first group of songs, but he was out when they arrived, and the event was postponed until later in the year, when the full performance was given. Between the 1823 and 1824 editions, Müller varied the texts slightly and also (with the addition of the further 12 poems) altered the order in which they were presented. Owing to the two stages of composition, Schubert's order in the song-cycle preserves

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1664-595: The first on 14 January 1828, and the second (the proofs of which Schubert was still correcting days before his death on 19 November) on 30 December 1828. The text consists of poems by Wilhelm Müller . Müller, a poet, soldier and Imperial Librarian at Dessau in Prussia (present-day east-central Germany), died in 1827 aged 32, and probably never heard the first setting of his poems in Die schöne Müllerin (1823), let alone Winterreise . Die schöne Müllerin had become central to

1716-635: The first song cycle to ever be written entirely to Shakespearean texts. The orchestral song cycle Sing, Poetry on the 2011 album Troika consists of settings of Vladimir Nabokov 's Russian and English-language poetry by three Russian and three American composers. Cycles in other languages have been written by Granados , Mohammed Fairouz , Cristiano Melli, Falla , Juan María Solare , Grieg , Lorenzo Ferrero , Dvořák , Janáček , Bartók , Kodály , Sibelius , Rautavaara , Peter Schat , Mompou , Montsalvatge , and A. Saygun etc. Song cycles written by popular musicians (also called rock operas ) are

1768-508: The following year, Quatre poèmes de Guillaume Apollinaire (1931), Tel jour telle nuit (poems by Paul Éluard ), 1937, Banalités (poems by Apollinaire, 1940), to his last, La Courte Paille (1960) - seven songs in eight minutes. Poèmes pour Mi , Chants de Terre et de Ciel and Harawi by Messiaen , Paroles tissées and Chantefleurs et Chantefables by Lutosławski (only an honorary Frenchman) as well as Correspondances and Le temps l'horloge by Dutilleux continued

1820-528: The gloomy nature of the Winterreise , compared with Die schöne Müllerin , there is a change of season, December for May, and a deeper core of pain, the difference between the heartbreak of a youth and a man. There is no need to seek in external vicissitudes an explanation of the pathos of the Winterreise music when the composer was this Schubert who, as a boy of seventeen, had the imagination to fix Gretchen's cry in music once for all, and had so quivered year by year in response to every appeal, to Mignon 's and

1872-623: The heart. Elena Gerhardt said of the Winterreise , "You have to be haunted by this cycle to be able to sing it." In his introduction to the Peters edition (with the critical revisions of Max Friedlaender ), Professor Max Müller , son of the poet Wilhelm Müller , remarks that Schubert's two song-cycles have a dramatic effect not unlike that of a full-scale tragic opera, particularly when performed by great singers such as Jenny Lind ( Die schöne Müllerin ) or Julius Stockhausen ( Winterreise ). Like Die schöne Müllerin , Schubert's Winterreise

1924-802: The integrity of the cycle of the first twelve poems published and appends the twelve new poems as a Fortsetzung ( Continuation ), following Müller's order (if one excludes the poems already set) with the one exception of switching "Die Nebensonnen" and "Mut!". In the complete book edition, Müller's final running-order was as follows: "Gute Nacht"; "Die Wetterfahne"; "Gefror'ne Tränen"; "Erstarrung"; "Der Lindenbaum"; "Die Post"; "Wasserflut"; "Auf dem Flusse"; "Rückblick"; "Der greise Kopf"; "Die Krähe"; "Letzte Hoffnung"; "Im Dorfe"; "Der stürmische Morgen"; "Täuschung"; "Der Wegweiser"; "Das Wirtshaus"; "[Das] Irrlicht"; "Rast"; "Die Nebensonnen"; "Frühlingstraum"; "Einsamkeit"; "Mut!"; "Der Leiermann". Thus, Schubert's numbers would run 1–5, 13, 6–8, 14–21, 9–10, 23, 11–12, 22, 24,

1976-470: The latter originally for voice with piano and string quartet but later orchestrated. The composer and renowned Lieder accompanist Benjamin Britten also wrote song cycles, including The Holy Sonnets of John Donne , Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo , Sechs Hölderlin-Fragmente , and Winter Words , all with piano accompaniment, and the orchestral Les Illuminations , Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings , and Nocturne . Raising Sparks (1977) by

2028-413: The nature imagery of the poems, the voices of the elements, the creatures and active objects, the rushing storm, the crying wind, the water under the ice, birds singing, ravens croaking, dogs baying, the rusty weathervane grating, the post horn calling, and the drone and repeated melody of the hurdy-gurdy . Many have attempted to explain the reason Schubert composed Winterreise. A possible explanation

2080-500: The original music and text of December Songs , a song cycle influenced by Winterreise , on commission from Carnegie Hall for its Centennial celebration. In 1994 Polish poet Stanisław Barańczak published his poems, entitled Podróż zimowa , which – apart from one translation of a work by Müller – were inspired by Schubert's music. 2020 Deutschlandfunk presents a new production of the Winterreise by Augst & Daemgen. In

2132-473: The path to resignation. In Winterreise Schubert raises the importance of the pianist to a role equal to that of the singer. In particular, the piano's rhythms constantly express the moods of the poet, like the distinctive rhythm of "Auf dem Flusse", the restless syncopated figures in "Rückblick", the dramatic tremolos in "Einsamkeit", the glimmering clusters of notes in "Irrlicht", or the sharp accents in "Der stürmische Morgen". The piano supplies rich effects in

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2184-577: The performing repertoire and partnership of Schubert with his friend, the baritone singer Johann Michael Vogl , who introduced Schubert's songs to many people in their tours through Austria in the mid-1820s. Schubert found the first twelve poems under the title Wanderlieder von Wilhelm Müller. Die Winterreise. In 12 Liedern in an almanack ( Urania. Taschenbuch auf das Jahr 1823  [ de ] ) published in Leipzig in 1823. His intimate friend Franz von Schober had provided this book for him. It

2236-470: The poet Johann Mayrhofer . Both Spaun and Mayrhofer describe the period of the composition of Winterreise as one in which Schubert was in a deeply melancholic frame of mind, as Mayrhofer puts it, because "life had lost its rosiness and winter was upon him." Spaun tells that Schubert was gloomy and depressed, and when asked the reason replied, "Come to Schober's today and I will play you a cycle of terrifying songs; they have affected me more than has ever been

2288-519: The poet's notebook . The cycle is dedicated to the tenor Wilfred Brown and the oboist Janet Craxton . It was first performed in concert and broadcast on the BBC Third Programme on 8 October 1958, shortly after the composer's death. The songs are: This article about a classical composition is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Song cycle The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rarely

2340-490: The poetry are carefully built up to express the sorrows of the lover, and are developed to an almost pathological degree from the first to the last note, something explored (along with the cultural context of the work) by the tenor Ian Bostridge in Schubert's Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession . Over the course of the cycle, grief over lost love progressively gives way to more general existential despair and resignation –

2392-436: The program Atelier neuer Musik it says: "Hardly any other recording of the Winterreise cycle deals with Müller's texts and Schubert's music in such a radically different way than the reading of the composers and interpreters Oliver Augst and Marcel Daemgen. The focus of the arrangements is not the brilliantly polished beautiful sound of centuries-old traditional musical tradition, but rather its strict breakthrough in order to gain

2444-438: The songs differ in the autograph and a copy with Schubert's corrections. "Wasserflut" was transposed by Schubert from F ♯ minor to E minor without alteration; "Rast" moved from D minor to C minor and "Einsamkeit" from D minor to B minor, both with changes to the vocal line; "Mut" was transposed from A minor to G minor; "Der Leiermann" was transposed from B minor to A minor. The most recent scholarly edition of Winterreise

2496-425: The text (a single poet; a story line; a central theme or topic such as love or nature; a unifying mood; poetic form or genre, as in a sonnet or ballad cycle) or from musical procedures (tonal schemes; recurring motifs, passages or entire songs; formal structures). These unifying features may appear singly or in combination. Because of these many variations, the song cycle "resists definition". The nature and quality of

2548-424: Was after he set these, in February 1827, that he discovered the full series of poems in Müller's book of 1824, Poems from the posthumous papers of a travelling horn-player , dedicated to the composer Carl Maria von Weber (godfather of Müller's son F. Max Müller ), "as a pledge of his friendship and admiration". Weber died in 1826. On 4 March 1827, Schubert invited a group of friends to his lodgings intending to sing

2600-504: Was carried on by Wolfgang Rihm , with cycles such as Reminiszenz (2017). Graham Waterhouse composed song cycles including Sechs späteste Lieder after Hölderlin 's late poems in 2003. The six songs of Berlioz 's Les nuits d'été (1841), first published with piano accompaniment but later orchestrated, is a notable early example of the French song cycle. French cycles reached a pinnacle in Fauré 's La bonne chanson (Verlaine) of

2652-635: Was created in 1991. This was December Songs (1991), created by Maury Yeston , and commissioned by Carnegie Hall for its Centennial celebration in 1991. It has been translated, performed and recorded in French, German. and Polish. Other examples include Ghost Quartet by Dave Malloy (2014), Songs for a New World by Jason Robert Brown (1995), William Finn 's Elegies (2003), Bill Russell 's Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens (1989), and Myths and Hymns by Adam Guettel (1998). Winterreise Winterreise ( German pronunciation: [ˈvɪntɐˌʁaɪzə] , Winter Journey )

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2704-563: Was firmly established by the cycles of Schubert ; his Die schöne Müllerin (1823) and Winterreise (1827), settings of poems by Wilhelm Müller , are among his most greatly admired works. Schubert's Schwanengesang (1828), though collected posthumously, is also frequently performed as a cycle. Schumann 's great cycles were all composed in 1840. They comprise Dichterliebe , Frauenliebe und -leben , two collections entitled Liederkreis ( Opp. 24 & 39 on texts by Heinrich Heine and Eichendorf respectively)—a German word meaning

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