View near Camonteign, Devon (detail), by John White Abbott (1764 – 1851), 1803 (Photo credit: Google images)

Die Lieder

In the nineteenth century, instrumental music came of age.  It was, at long last, morally acceptable.  Yet, in nineteenth-century Europe, the humble song reached its apex.  In music, the song is the only permanent genre.  It found its finest composers in Beethoven’s (An Die Ferne Geliebte, To the distant beloved), but, to a greater extent, in Schubert, the Master: Die Forelle (The Trout) and Ständchen, a “Serenade,” and in Schumann: “Die wunderschönen Monat Mai” (“The Wonderful Month of May”) and “Hör’ ich das liedchen klingen”  (“I hear a little sound sounding,” in Dichterliebe).

Song Cycles

Composers wrote song cycles, such as Schubert’s Winterreise and Die schöne Müllerin, and Schumann’s Dichterliebe.

Let’s listen to Die Forelle (The Trout) and Ständchen, interpreted by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, in 1951, as well as an instrumental version of the “Serenade.”

Die Forelle

Ständchen “Serenade” (from: Schwanengesang)

Franz Schubert (1797 – 1828)