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The song cycle was one of the most important musical genres of the nineteenth century. Famous examples by Schubert, Schumann and Mahler have received a great deal of attention. Yet many other cycles - by equally famous composers, from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - have not. The Song Cycle introduces key concepts and a broad repertoire by tracing a history of the genre from Beethoven through to the present day. It explores how song cycles reflect the world around them and how national traditions and social relationships are represented in composers' choice of texts and musical styles. Tunbridge investigates how other types of music have influenced the scope of the song cycle, from operas and symphonies to popular song. A lively and engaging guide to this important topic, the book outlines how performance practices, from concert customs to new recording technologies, have changed the way we listen.
The song cycle was one of the most important musical genres of the nineteenth century. Famous examples by Schubert, Schumann and Mahler have received a great deal of attention. Yet many other cycles - by equally famous composers, from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries - have not. The Song Cycle introduces key concepts and a broad repertoire by tracing a history of the genre from Beethoven through to the present day. It explores how song cycles reflect the world around them and how national traditions and social relationships are represented in composers' choice of texts and musical styles. Tunbridge investigates how other types of music have influenced the scope of the song cycle, from operas and symphonies to popular song. A lively and engaging guide to this important topic, the book outlines how performance practices, from concert customs to new recording technologies, have changed the way we listen.
Chronology; 1. Concepts; 2. Wanderers and balladeers; 3. Performance: the long nineteenth century; 4. Gendered voices; 5. Between opera and symphony; 6. Travels abroad; 7. Modern subjects; 8. Death of the song cycle; 9. Performance: the twentieth century; 10. Afterlife: the late twentieth century; 11. Rebirth: pop song cycles; Guide to further reading.
Investigating the song cycle from Beethoven to today, this introduction covers all the key concepts of this important musical genre.
Laura Tunbridge is Senior Lecturer in Music at the University of Manchester. She is the author of Schumann's Late Style (2007) and co-editor of Rethinking Schumann, as well as having contributed chapters and articles to The Cambridge Companion to Schumann (2007), The Musical Quarterly, Music and Letters, the Cambridge Opera Journal, Opera Quarterly and The Journal of the Royal Musical Association.
'Scholars and teachers will be grateful for the brand-new emphases
on performing traditions and performers, on the 20th-century cycle,
on the migrations of the song cycle into non-Germanic lands, and on
the cycle in popular music. Much of this is original work, superbly
done and beautifully written … Tunbridge's introductory chapter on
concepts is the clearest approach (and the most thought-provoking)
to vexed issues of definition I have ever encountered.' Susan
Youens, J. W. Van Gorkom Professor of Music Musicology, University
of Notre Dame
'Illuminating.' Classical Music
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