CLASSICISM, LIEDER, AND THE LUTE

 

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Last Update: October 13, 2013

Editor's Note: These pages are dedicated (but not limited) to Classical and Early Romantic Lied and its relationship to Lutenistic Art. In reality, 13-course Baroque Lute belongs to a preceding Era- the Era of "Single Affect Principle", an essential characteristic of the Baroque. The simple fact is that the Baroque Lute was not capable to live outside this principle by the nature of it's tuning system, ruling out any possibility of its participation in the contrasting moods of the Post-Classical Era Music. However this "Single Affect Principle" did not disappear with the Baroque, but for a time lived side by side with the newer styles, Classicism and Romanticism, producing some beautiful Lieder that can be and must be appropriated for our instrument (or or even seized by force, if necessary). Another important consideration is that any Artistic Era tends to finish its life-cycle with some type of Neo-Classical movement that would strive for maximum simplicity of espression with the minimum of means. At the end of the 18th Century this mindset discovered Folk Idiom, both in Poetry and Music. J.F.Herder translation of Lowland Scottish Border Ballads is nothing short of Aesthetic Revolution. They were almost immediately translated into every language and set to music, producing perfect synthesis of Neo-Classical form and powerful folk (of folk-styled) poetry unadorned by the elliptic thinking of the preceding era. The rest is History.

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This site offers FREE scores of such Lieder with Accompaniments arranged in Lute Tabulature [not only by Sautschecks, but others as well], for practical use by Lutenists who work with Singers or sing themselves. We will eventually present many works by C.P.E. Bach, Krebs, Marpurg, Graun, Spazier, Zelter, Zumsteeg, Reichardt, Neukomm, Steffan, Beethoven, Tomasek, Schubert, Loewe, and Anonymous to name just a few... Some of these composers were lutenists, most were not, but all of them produced Lieder literature of considerable beauty, eminently adaptable for Baroque Lute. The arrangements will be kept simple- according to the neoclassical rules of Lied literature in the 18th century, with consideration of a possibility of self-accompanied performance.

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This collectiom is not limited to German Lieder: there would be Italian, Russian, Swedish and Ukrainian songs, as well as songs in other languages.

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 It takes considerable time and effort to produce these tabulatures. You may support this effort either financially, by sending a voluntary monetary contribution to this webmaster, or you may contribute physically either by procuring interesting and relevant material or helping with typesetting the material that has been already collected. We leave this up to your conscience...

If you are competent in Fronimo, Stringwalker or Django or any other music engraving software: please consider lending a hand.

Heartfelt thanks to those who helped already: Maria Gerasymenko-Golota, Lino Messina, Manolo Laguillo, Gernot Hilger, Mathias Rösel, Francesco Tribioli, Thomas Schall, Isiroro Roitman, Gabriel Schebor, Julian Kytasty, Mar'jana Sadovska, Jürg Meilli and Donatella Galletti.

Please note that only songs with OBBLIGATO Baroque Lute are accepted for contributions, i.e. songs with Basso Continuo are not acceptable.

 

LIBRARY NAVIGATION

IMPORTANT NOTE: Many Lieder texts in different languages are available at http://www.recmusic.org/lieder/ .

All materials found in these pages are typeset with Alain Veylit's DJANGO, and Francesco Tribioli's FRONIMO software.

IMPORTANT NOTE: All Lieder below are now categorized by LANGUAGE GROUPS.

:: ITALIAN/CORSICAN ::

:: GERMAN ::

:: RUSSIAN ::

:: SCANDINAVIAN ::

:: SPANISH/LUNFARDO/CATALAN ::

:: UKRAINIAN/LEMKO ::

:: ENGLISH ::

 

:: MODERN LUTE SONGS RESOURCES ::

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