German Song Onstage Lieder Performance in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

A singer in an evening dress, a grand piano. A modest-sized audience, mostly well-dressed and silver-haired, equipped with translation booklets. A program consisting entirely of songs by one or two composers. This is the way of the Lieder recital these days. While it might seem that this style of performance is a long-standing tradition, German Song Onstage demonstrates that it is not. For much of the 19th century, the songs of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, and Brahms were heard in the home, salon, and, no less significantly, on the concert platform alongside orchestral and choral works. A dedicated program was rare, a dedicated audience even more so. The Lied was a genre with both more private and more public associations than is commonly recalled. The contributors to this volume explore a broad range of venues, singers, and audiences in distinct places and time periods—including the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, and Germany—from the mid-19th century through the early 20th century. These historical case studies are set alongside reflections from a selection of today's leading musicians, offering insights on current Lied practices that will inform future generations of performers, scholars, and connoisseurs. Together these case studies unsettle narrow and elitist assumptions about what it meant and still means to present German song onstage by providing a transnational picture of historical Lieder performance, and opening up discussions about the relationship between history and performance today.

Natasha Loges is Head of Postgraduate Programmes at the Royal College of Music. She is author of Brahms and His Poets: A Handbook. She is also editor (with Katy Hamilton) of Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall: Between Private and Public Performance and Brahms in Context, as well as editor (with Anja Bunzel) of Musical Salon Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century.

Laura Tunbridge is Professor of Music at the University of Oxford. She is author of Schumann's Late Style, The Song Cycle, and Singing in the Age of Anxiety: Lieder Performances in New York and London between the World Wars and editor (with Roe-Min Kok) of Rethinking Schumann.

Nicholas Attfield is Lecturer in Music at the University of Birmingham. He is author of Challenging the Modern: Conservative Revolution in German Music, 1918-1933 and co-editor of Music, Modern Culture, and the Critical Ear: A Festschrift for Peter Franklin.

Benjamin Binder is Associate Professor of Music at Duquesne University and a collaborative pianist.

Beatrix Borchard is Emeritus Professor of Musicology at the University of Music and Theatre in Hamburg. She is author of Clara Schumann: Ihr Leben, Fanny Hensel geb. Mendelssohn Bartholdy, and Stimme und Geige: Amalie und Joseph Joachim.

Rosamund Cole is Researcher at the Universität Mozarteum Salzburg.

Jeremy Coleman is Teaching Fellow of Music at the University of Aberdeen.

Katy Hamilton is co-editor of Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall: Between Private and Public Performance.

Natasha Loges is Head of Postgraduate Programmes at the Royal College of Music. She is author of Brahms and his Poets: A Handbook and co-editor of Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall: Between Private and Public Performance, Brahms in Context, and Musical Salon Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century.

Simon McVeigh is Professor of Music at Goldsmiths, University of London, and President of the Royal Musical Association. He is author of Concert Life in London from Mozart to Haydn and co-author of The Italian Solo Concerto 1710- 1760: Rhetorical Strategies and Style History.

Heather Platt is Professor of Music History at Ball State University. She is author of Johannes Brahms: A Research and Information Guide and co-editor, with Peter H. Smith, of Expressive Intersections in Brahms: Essays in Analysis and Meaning (IUP, 2012).

Wiebke Rademacher is Research Fellow at the a.r.t.e.s. Graduate School for the Humanities at the University of Cologne.

Maria Razumovskaya teaches at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London, and is a pianist. She is author of Heinrich Neuhaus: A Life beyond Music.

Laura Tunbridge is Professor of Music at the University of Oxford. She is author of Schumann's Late Style, The Song Cycle, and Singing in the Age of Anxiety: Lieder Performances in New York and London between the World Wars and co-editor of Rethinking Schumann.

William Weber is Emeritus Professor of History at California State University, Long Beach. He is author of The Musician as Entrepreneur, 1700-1914 (IUP, 2004), Music and the Middle Class: The Social Structure of Concert Life in London, Paris and Vienna between 1830 and 1848, The Rise of Musical Classics in Eighteenth-Century England: A Study in Canon, Ritual, and Ideology, and The Great Transformation of Musical Taste: Concert Programming from Haydn to Brahms.

Susan Youens is J.W. Van Gorkom Professor Emerita of Music at the University of Notre Dame. She is author of Schubert, Müller, and "Die schöne Müllerin, " Hugo Wolf and his Mörike Songs, Schubert's Late Lieder: Beyond the Song-Cycles, and Heinrich Heine and the Lied.

Natasha Loges is Head of Postgraduate Programmes at the Royal College of Music. She is author of Brahms and His Poets: A Handbook. She is also editor (with Katy Hamilton) of Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall: Between Private and Public Performance and Brahms in Context, as well as editor (with Anja Bunzel) of Musical Salon Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century.

Laura Tunbridge is Professor of Music at the University of Oxford. She is author of Schumann’s Late Style, The Song Cycle, and Singing in the Age of Anxiety: Lieder Performances in New York and London between the World Wars and editor (with Roe-Min Kok) of Rethinking Schumann.

Natasha Loges is Head of Postgraduate Programmes at the Royal College of Music. She is author of Brahms and His Poets: A Handbook. She is also editor (with Katy Hamilton) of Brahms in the Home and the Concert Hall: Between Private and Public Performance and Brahms in Context, as well as editor (with Anja Bunzel) of Musical Salon Culture in the Long Nineteenth Century.

Laura Tunbridge is Professor of Music at the University of Oxford. She is author of Schumann's Late Style, The Song Cycle, and Singing in the Age of Anxiety: Lieder Performances in New York and London between the World Wars and editor (with Roe-Min Kok) of Rethinking Schumann.