Heinrich Heine and the Lied [Hardcover]

A study into the poet Heinrich Heine's impact on nineteenth-century song.This book asks why the poet Heinrich Heine (17971856) had such an impact on the history of nineteenth-century song. From the 1820s until the mid-century mark, Heine was the poet of choice for composers who found in this new poetic language the means for cutting-edge tonal experiments.This book asks why the poet Heinrich Heine (17971856) had such an impact on the history of nineteenth-century song. From the 1820s until the mid-century mark, Heine was the poet of choice for composers who found in this new poetic language the means for cutting-edge tonal experiments.More than any other poet, Heinrich Heine has provided composers for almost two hundred years with texts for music: more than eight thousand compositions to date. Nineteenth-century composers were drawn in particular to a limited selection of Heine's early lyrical works from the Buch der Lieder and the Neue Gedichte for their songs; poems such as 'Du bist wie eine Blume', 'The sea hath its pearls' and 'Was will die einsame Tr?ne' were set to music over and over again. In this book, Youens examines some of the reasons for Heine's popularity, especially the fact that composers in the second quarter of the nineteenth century were drawn to him for songs in radical styles, songs that redefined what Lied could be and do. Specific topics of this book include Schubert's fusion of reinvented song traditions with radical tonal procedures and the political meanings of poetry and song in Schumann's time.Preface; 1. In the beginning: Schubert and Heine; 2. Missing links: the Heine songs of Franz Lachner and Johann Vesque von P?ttlingen; 3. A Tale of Three Ballads: Heine and the Schumanns; 4. 'A Flower by any other name': song, sex, society, and 'Du bist wie eine Blume'; Bibliography.Review of the hardback: '& definitely an essential reading for any accompanist or singer really interested in what he/she is performing &' The SingerReview of the harlC^