What Is A Song Cycle

A song bicycle in classical music is a grouping of songs that belong together. Although each song may exist sung separately, the composer actually imagined that they would exist performed together as one work. Sometimes they tell a story, but sometimes they just vest together because they are about the same idea (due east.g. the sadness that tin be acquired by love). They are often for solo vocalization and piano accompaniment, only they can besides be without accompaniment, or with several instruments or even a whole orchestra. The words of a cycle are often by the same poet, but this is non always the case.

Vocal cycles started to get pop with composers in the Romantic period. Although there were examples of song cycles written before that, it was the High german composers of the 19th century who are most frequently thought of every bit writers of song cycles. Their songs are chosen "Lieder".

Franz Schubert who wrote 2 long song cycles

The great composer Franz Schubert wrote about 600 songs. These include 2 long song cycles: Winterreise (Winter'due south Journey) and Die schöne Müllerin (The cute miller's girl). Each of these vocal cycles is long enough for a whole concert. Robert Schumann wrote song cycles including 2 which he simply called Liederkreise (Song Cycles), and his well-known Dichterliebe (Poet's Dearest) and Frauenliebe und -Leben (Women'south Love and Life). Brahms wrote Vier ernste Gesänge (4 Serious Songs), and Gustav Mahler, who became very interested in folk song, wrote several song cycles with orchestra accessory, including Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth).

French composers who wrote vocal cycles include Jules Massenet, Gabriel Fauré and Claude Debussy. Russian composers include Small Mussorgsky and Dmitri Shostakovich, and English and American composers in the 20th century include Michael Tippett, Benjamin Britten and Aaron Copland too as the South American Alberto Ginastera, Juan María Solare and Heitor Villa-Lobos.