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46-470: The songs are either for solo voice or an ensemble, or rarely a combination of solo songs mingled with choral pieces. The number of songs in a song cycle may be as brief as two songs or as long as 30 or more songs. The term "song cycle" did not enter lexicography until 1865, in Arrey von Dommer's edition of Koch’s Musikalisches Lexikon , but works definable in retrospect as song cycles existed long before then. One of

92-418: A Bonaval, pois meu amig' i ven Se vos non pesar, mha madre, rogar vos ei, por Deus, que mi non digades mal, e irei a Bonaval, pois meu amig' i ven I want to ask you, my mother and madam, That you not speak ill of me today, if I go To Bonaval, since my boy is coming there. If it doesn't upset you, my mother, I will ask, By God, that you not speak ill of me, and I'll go To Bonaval, since my boy

138-623: A Hero (1981), Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens (1989), Next Year in Jerusalem (1985), and A Year of Birds (1995) by Malcolm Williamson , Maury Yeston 's December Songs (1991), commissioned by Carnegie Hall for its centennial year celebration, Honey and Rue by André Previn (composed for the American soprano Kathleen Battle ). David Conte 's American Death Ballads (2015). Alex Weiser 's song cycle in Yiddish and English, and all

184-484: A Memory and The Astonishing , as well as Marvin Gaye 's classic soul album What's Going On . The R&B singer Raphael Saadiq 's 2019 album, Jimmy Lee , is composed as a song cycle with personal narratives thematizing issues affecting African Americans, including addiction, stress, domestic conflict, AIDS, perpetual financial hardship, and mass incarceration. One of the earliest song cycle musical theater works

230-448: A long walk. Yes indeed, they have just stepped out, And now they are making their way home. Don't be worried, the day is fine. They have simply made a journey to those hills. They have just gone out ahead of us, And they will not be coming home again. We'll go meet them on those hills, In the sunlight, the day is fine On those hills. " In this weather " In this weather, in this windy storm, I would never have sent

276-408: A more educated middle class, "who were gradually supplanting the aristocracy as the main patrons of the arts". Since these songs were relatively small-scale works, like the lyric poetry used for their musical settings, they were often published in collections, and consequently borrowed various poetic terms to mark their groupings: Reihe (series), Kranz (ring), Zyklus (cycle) or Kreis (circle). In

322-565: A short series of songs that tell a story or focus on a particular theme. Some musicians also blend tracks together, so that the start of the next song continues from the preceding one. Modern examples of this can be found in James Pankow 's rock opera Ballet for a Girl in Buchannon (for Chicago on their self-titled second album ) Pink Floyd 's rock opera The Wall , Dream Theater 's progressive metal albums Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from

368-516: A song cycle—and the Kerner Lieder (Op. 35), a Liederreihe (literally "song row") on poems by Justinus Kerner. Brahms composed settings (Op. 33) of verses from Ludwig Tieck 's novel "Magelone", and modern performances usually include some sort of connecting narration. He also wrote Vier ernste Gesänge ("Four Serious Songs"), Op. 121 (1896). Mahler 's Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen , Kindertotenlieder , and Das Lied von der Erde expand

414-3723: A wide variety of timbres within a smaller-scale sound; Tunbridge sees this as a new precedent adopted by later composers, for example Schoenberg in Pierrot Lunaire . Concerning the performance of the work, the composer wrote "these five songs are intended as one inseparate unit, and in performing them their continuity should not be interfered with". The work takes about 25 minutes to perform. " Nun will die Sonn' so hell aufgeh'n " ( D minor ) Nun will die Sonn' so hell aufgeh'n als sei kein Unglück die Nacht gescheh'n. Das Unglück geschah nur mir allein. Die Sonne, sie scheinet allgemein. Du mußt nicht die Nacht in dir verschränken mußt sie ins ew'ge Licht versenken. Ein Lämplein verlosch in meinem Zelt, Heil sei dem Freudenlicht der Welt. " Nun seh' ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen " ( C minor ) Nun seh' ich wohl, warum so dunkle Flammen ihr sprühtet mir in manchem Augenblicke. O Augen, gleichsam, um in einem Blicke zu drängen eure ganze Macht zusammen. Doch ahnt' ich nicht, weil Nebel mich umschwammen, gewoben vom verblendenden Geschicke, daß sich der Strahl bereits zur Heimkehr schicke, dorthin, von wannen alle Strahlen stammen. Ihr wolltet mir mit eurem Leuchten sagen: Wir möchten nah dir immer bleiben gerne! Doch ist uns das vom Schicksal abgeschlagen. Sieh' recht uns an, denn bald sind wir dir ferne! Was dir noch Augen sind in diesen Tagen: In künft'gen Nächten sind es dir nur Sterne. " Wenn dein Mütterlein " ( C minor ) Wenn dein Mütterlein tritt zur Tür herein, und den Kopf ich drehe, ihr entgegen sehe, fällt auf ihr Gesicht erst der Blick mir nicht, sondern auf die Stelle, näher nach der Schwelle, dort, wo würde dein lieb Gesichtchen sein. Wenn du freudenhelle trätest mit herein, wie sonst, mein Töchterlein. Wenn dein Mütterlein tritt zur Tür herein, mit der Kerze Schimmer, ist es mir, als immer kämst du mit herein, huschtest hinterdrein, als wie sonst ins Zimmer! O du, des Vaters Zelle, ach, zu schnell erlosch'ner Freudenschein! " Oft denk' ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen " ( E-flat major ) Oft denk' ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen, bald werden sie wieder nach Hause gelangen. Der Tag ist schön, o sei nicht bang, sie machen nur einen weiten Gang. Ja wohl, sie sind nur ausgegangen, und werden jetzt nach Hause gelangen. O, sei nicht bang, der Tag ist schön, sie machen einen Gang zu jenen Höh'n. Sie sind uns nur voraus gegangen, und werden nicht wieder nach Hause verlangen. Wir holen sie ein auf jenen Höh'n im Sonnenschein, der Tag ist schön, auf jenen Höh'n. " In diesem Wetter " ( D minor – D major ) In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus, nie hätt' ich gesendet die Kinder hinaus; man hat sie getragen hinaus, ich durfte nichts dazu sagen! In diesem Wetter, in diesem Saus, nie hätt' ich gelassen die Kinder hinaus; ich fürchtete sie erkranken, das sind nun eitle Gedanken. In diesem Wetter, in diesem Graus, Nie hätt' ich gelassen die Kinder hinaus; ich sorgte, sie stürben morgen, das ist nun nicht zu besorgen. In diesem Wetter, in diesem Graus! Nie hätt' ich gesendet die Kinder hinaus! Man hat sie hinaus getragen, ich durfte nichts dazu sagen! In diesem Wetter, in diesem Saus, in diesem Braus, sie ruh'n als wie in der Mutter Haus, von keinem Sturm erschrecket, von Gottes Hand bedecket. " Now

460-543: Is a genre of medieval lyric poetry , more specifically the Galician-Portuguese lyric , apparently rooted in a female-voiced song tradition native to the northwest quadrant of the Iberian Peninsula . According to Rip Cohen, “In 98% of the poems, the speaker is a girl, her mother, the girl’s girlfriend, or a boy (who is given a voice only in dialogues with the girl—which she begins). The girl can speak to any of

506-765: Is coming there. Bernal de Bonaval 8 Filha fremosa, vedes que vos digo: que non faledes ao voss' amigo sen mi, ai filha fremosa E se vós, filha, meu amor queredes, rogo vos eu que nunca lhi faledes sen mi, ai filha fremosa E al á i de que vos non guardades: perdedes i de quanto lhi falades sen mi, ai filha fremosa Lovely daughter, look what I'm telling you: Do not talk with your boyfriend Without me, o lovely daughter. And, daughter, if you want my love, I ask you that you never talk with him Without me, o lovely daughter. And there's something else you're careless about: You lose every word you talk with him Without me, o lovely daughter. Kindertotenlieder Kindertotenlieder ( Songs on

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552-431: Is not as common as might be imagined. All told, a few dozen poems make use of it (for instance, a rendezvous by the river, spring, or seashore). Far more often sexuality is expressed by code words, like veer (‘see’), falar (‘talk’), and fazer ben (‘do a favour’).” What mainly distinguishes the cantiga de amigo is its focus on a world of female-voiced communication. The earliest examples that survive are dated from roughly

598-432: Is regarded as a necessary attribute of song cycles. It may derive from the text (a single poet; a story line; a central theme or topic such as love or nature; a unifying mood; poetic form or genre, as in a sonnet or ballad cycle) or from musical procedures (tonal schemes; recurring motifs, passages or entire songs; formal structures). These unifying features may appear singly or in combination. Because of these many variations,

644-499: Is still higher than in cantigas de amor , and the quantity of speech actions is even higher. Although the rhetoric is simpler than of the two other genres, it is more complex than it was often allowed, slowly articulating a present action (or emotion) by repetition with variation, and usually holding important information until the end. There are insults, though lighter compared to the cantigas de escárnio e maldizer . Obscenity and open sexual references are taboo, just like in

690-493: The Pergaminho Vindel , probably a mid-13th-century manuscript and unique in all Romance philology. Stylistically, they are characterized by simple strophic forms, with repetition, variation, and parallelism, and are marked by the use of a refrain (88% of the texts). They constitute the largest body of female-voiced love lyric that has survived from ancient or medieval Europe. There are eighty-eight authors, all male, some of

736-469: The cantiga de amor . The cantiga de amigo have been said to have characteristics in common with the Mozarabic kharajat , but these may be merely coincidences of female speaker and erotic themes. Below are two cantigas d'amigo by Bernal de Bonaval (text from Cohen 2003, tr. Cohen 2010). Bernal de Bonaval 7 Rogar vos quer' eu, mha madre e mha senhor, que mi non digades oje mal, se eu for

782-762: The 1220s, and nearly all 500 were composed before 1300. Cantigas d'amigo are found mainly in the Cancioneiro Colocci-Brancuti , now in Lisbon's Biblioteca Nacional, and in the Cancioneiro da Vaticana , both copied in Italy at the beginning of the 16th century (possibly around 1525) at the behest of the Italian humanist Angelo Colocci . The seven songs of Martin Codax are also contained, along with music (for all but one text), in

828-457: The Death of Children ) is a song cycle (1904) for voice and orchestra by Gustav Mahler . The words of the songs are poems by Friedrich Rückert . The original Kindertodtenlieder were a group of 428 poems written by Rückert in 1833–34 in an outpouring of grief following the illness ( scarlet fever ) and death of two of his children. Karen Painter describes the poems thus: "Rückert's 428 poems on

874-632: The French cycle tradition in the later 20th century. Perhaps the first English song cycle was Arthur Sullivan 's The Window; or, The Song of the Wrens (1871), to a text of eleven poems by Tennyson . In the early 20th century, Vaughan Williams composed his famous song cycle, the Songs of Travel . Other song cycles by Vaughan Williams are The House of Life on sonnets by Dante Gabriel Rossetti and On Wenlock Edge on poems from A. E. Housman 's A Shropshire Lad ,

920-1233: The Scottish composer James MacMillan (1997) is a more recent example. Trevor Hold wrote numerous song cycles, including many setting his own words, such as The Image Stays (1979), River Songs (1982) and Book of Beasts (1984). The English composer Robin Holloway 's many song cycles include From High Windows ( Philip Larkin ) (1977), Wherever We May Be ( Robert Graves ) (1980) and Retreats and Advances ( A.S.J. Tessimond ) (2016). His pupil Peter Seabourne 's five song cycles include Sonnets to Orpheus (2016) setting eleven poems of Rainer Maria Rilke . Stephen Hough has written three cycles: Herbstlieder (Rilke) (2007), Dappled Things (Wilde and Hopkins) (2013), and Other Love Songs (2010) for four singers and piano duet. Graham Waterhouse composed several song cycles , based on texts by Shakespeare , James Joyce , and Irish female writers, among others. American examples include Samuel Barber 's Hermit Songs (1953), Mélodies Passagères , and Despite and Still , and Songfest by Leonard Bernstein , Hammarskjöld Portrait (1974), Les Olympiques (1976), Tribute to

966-634: The accompaniment from piano to orchestra. Wolf made the composition of song collections by a single poet something of a specialty, although only the shorter Italian Songbook and Spanish Songbook are performed at a single sitting, and Eisler 's Hollywood Liederbuch also falls into the category of anthology. Das Buch der hängenden Gärten by Schoenberg and Krenek 's Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen are important 20th-century examples. Wilhelm Killmayer composed several song cycles , on lyrics by Sappho , French Renaissance poets, German Romantic poets, and contemporary poets. The tradition

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1012-411: The better known being King Dinis of Portugal (52 songs in this genre), Johan Airas de Santiago (45), Johan Garcia de Guilhade (22), Juião Bolseiro (15), Johan Baveca (13), Pedr' Amigo de Sevilha (10), João Zorro (10), Pero Meogo (9), Bernal de Bonaval (8), Martim Codax (7). Even Mendinho , author of a single song, has been acclaimed as a master poet. The quantity of situations, although limited,

1058-435: The children out. They have been carried off, I wasn't able to warn them! In this weather, in this gale, I would never have let the children out. I feared they sickened: those thoughts are now in vain. In this weather, in this storm, I would never have let the children out, I was anxious they might die the next day: now anxiety is pointless. In this weather, in this windy storm, I would never have sent

1104-537: The days were purple (2019), was a 2020 finalist for the Pulitzer Prize . Mussorgsky wrote Sunless (1874), The Nursery (1868–72) and Songs and Dances of Death (1875–77), and Shostakovich wrote cycles on English and Yiddish poets, as well as Michelangelo and Alexander Pushkin . In 2020, Rodrigo Ruiz became the first Mexican composer known to have written a song cycle. Ruiz's Venus & Adonis sets Shakespeare's eponymous narrative poem in what became

1150-445: The death of children became singular, almost manic documents of the psychological endeavor to cope with such loss. In ever new variations Rückert's poems attempt a poetic resuscitation of the children that is punctuated by anguished outbursts. But above all the poems show a quiet acquiescence to fate and to a peaceful world of solace." These poems were not intended for publication, and they appeared in print only in 1871, five years after

1196-455: The death of his closest younger brother Ernst in 1875 had affected him most deeply, and he confided to [his friend] Natalie [Bauer-Lechner] that 'such frightful sorrow he had never again experienced, as great a loss he had nevermore borne'." Mahler resumed the composition of the interrupted work (see above) in 1904, only two weeks after the birth of his own second child; this upset his wife Alma , who "found it incomprehensible and feared Mahler

1242-433: The door with the glowing candle, it seems to me, as if you always came in with her too, hurrying behind her, as you used to come into the room. Oh you, of a father's cell, ah, too soon extinguished joyful light! " I often think that they have just stepped out " I often think that they have just stepped out And that they will be coming home soon. The day is fine, don't be worried, They've just gone for

1288-499: The earliest examples may be the set of seven Cantigas de amigo by the 13th-century Galician jongleur Martin Codax . Jeffrey Mark identified the group of dialect songs 'Hodge und Malkyn' from Thomas Ravenscroft 's The Briefe Discourse (1614) as the first of a number of early 17th-century examples in England. A song cycle is similar to a song collection, and the two can be difficult to distinguish. Some type of coherence , however,

1334-465: The early 1890s, La chanson d'Ève , premiered complete in 1910, and L'horizon chimérique (1921). Chabrier 's four 'Barnyard songs' (1889) "introduced a new note into contemporary French music" and prefigured Ravel's Histoires naturelles . Poulenc produced a long line of song cycles, from Le Bestiaire (1919), the Poèmes de Ronsard of 1925, Chansons Gaillardes (anonymous 17th-century texts) of

1380-619: The first few decades of the 1800s, the collections of poetry and the subsequent song settings took on more underlying coherence and dramatic plot, giving rise to the song cycle. This coherence allowed the song genre to be elevated to a "higher form", serious enough to be compared with symphonies and cycles of lyric piano pieces. Two of the earliest examples of the German song cycle were composed in 1816: Beethoven 's An die ferne Geliebte (Op. 98), and Die Temperamente beim Verluste der Geliebten (J. 200-3, \Op. 46) by Carl Maria von Weber . The genre

1426-632: The first song cycle to ever be written entirely to Shakespearean texts. The orchestral song cycle Sing, Poetry on the 2011 album Troika consists of settings of Vladimir Nabokov 's Russian and English-language poetry by three Russian and three American composers. Cycles in other languages have been written by Granados , Mohammed Fairouz , Cristiano Melli, Falla , Juan María Solare , Grieg , Lorenzo Ferrero , Dvořák , Janáček , Bartók , Kodály , Sibelius , Rautavaara , Peter Schat , Mompou , Montsalvatge , and A. Saygun etc. Song cycles written by popular musicians (also called rock operas ) are

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1472-534: The first subject of the finale of Mahler's Symphony No. 3 (1895/96), a movement titled "What love tells me" (" Was mir die Liebe erzählt "). "Musically, then, this is the last word of the Kindertotenlieder : that death is powerful, yet love is even stronger." At the time he wrote the work, Mahler was no stranger to the deaths of children. Hefling writes: "Such tragedy was familiar to Mahler, eight of his siblings died during their childhood. Among all of them,

1518-547: The first, third, and fourth songs in 1901 (he played them for his friend Natalie Bauer-Lechner on 10 August). There followed a long break, and the remaining songs were composed in the summer of 1904. The work was premiered in Vienna on 29 January 1905. Friedrich Weidemann , a leading baritone at the Vienna Court Opera , was the soloist, and the composer conducted. The hall was selected as a relatively small one, compatible with

1564-508: The following year, Quatre poèmes de Guillaume Apollinaire (1931), Tel jour telle nuit (poems by Paul Éluard ), 1937, Banalités (poems by Apollinaire, 1940), to his last, La Courte Paille (1960) - seven songs in eight minutes. Poèmes pour Mi , Chants de Terre et de Ciel and Harawi by Messiaen , Paroles tissées and Chantefleurs et Chantefables by Lutosławski (only an honorary Frenchman) as well as Correspondances and Le temps l'horloge by Dutilleux continued

1610-633: The intimacy of the lied genre, and the orchestra was a chamber orchestra consisting of players drawn from the Vienna Philharmonic . The work is scored for a vocal soloist (the notes lie comfortably for a baritone or mezzo-soprano ) and an orchestra consisting of piccolo , 2 flutes , 2 oboes , cor anglais (English horn), 2 clarinets , bass clarinet , 2 bassoons , contrabassoon , 4 horns , timpani , glockenspiel , tam-tam , celesta , harp , and strings . Deployed at chamber-orchestra scale, this instrumentation permitted Mahler to explore

1656-520: The latter originally for voice with piano and string quartet but later orchestrated. The composer and renowned Lieder accompanist Benjamin Britten also wrote song cycles, including The Holy Sonnets of John Donne , Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo , Sechs Hölderlin-Fragmente , and Winter Words , all with piano accompaniment, and the orchestral Les Illuminations , Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings , and Nocturne . Raising Sparks (1977) by

1702-401: The nights to come will be only stars. " When your mama " When your mama steps in through the door and I turn my head to see her, on her face my gaze does not first fall, but at the place nearer the doorstep, there, where your dear little face would be, when you with bright joy would step inside, as you used to, my little daughter. When your mama steps in through

1748-442: The other three personae, but they can only address her (there is no directly represented communication between the other three personae: mother, girlfriend and boy do not speak with one another onstage). There are a dozen cantigas with an outside narrative voice, but most of them include words from a girl’s song.” Much has been made of nature symbolism in this genre, but “Erotic symbolism, though it has rightly attracted attention […]

1794-508: The poet's death. Mahler selected five of Rückert's poems to set as Lieder , which he composed between 1901 and 1904. The songs are written in Mahler's late-romantic idiom, and like the texts reflect a mixture of feelings: anguish, fantasy resuscitation of the children, resignation. The final song ends in a major key and a mood of transcendence. The cello melody in the postlude to " In diesem Wetter, in diesem Braus " ( mm. 129–133) alludes to

1840-541: The song cycle "resists definition". The nature and quality of the coherence within a song cycle must therefore be examined "in individual cases". Although most European countries began developing the art song genre by the beginning of the 19th century, the rise of Lieder in "Austria and Germany have outweighed all others in terms of influence." German-language song composition at the end of 18th century shifted from accessible, Strophic form , more traditional folk songs to 19th century settings of more sophisticated poetry for

1886-522: The sun wants to rise as brightly " Now the sun wants to rise as brightly As if nothing terrible had happened during the night. The misfortune happened only to me, But the sun shines equally on everyone. You must not fold the night into yourself. You must bathe it in eternal light. A little lamp has gone out in my tent. I must greet the joyful light of the world. " Now I see why with such dark flames " Now I see why with such dark flames Your eyes flash at me in certain moments. O eyes, it

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1932-488: Was as if in a single glance You could concentrate your full power. Yet I didn't realize, because mists were floating around me, Woven by a blinding fate, That your beam of light was ready to be sent home, To the place from which all beams emanate. You wanted to tell me with your light: We really want to stay near you forever! But that was taken away by fate. Look straight at us, because soon we will be far away! What to you are only eyes in these days, In

1978-497: Was carried on by Wolfgang Rihm , with cycles such as Reminiszenz (2017). Graham Waterhouse composed song cycles including Sechs späteste Lieder after Hölderlin 's late poems in 2003. The six songs of Berlioz 's Les nuits d'été (1841), first published with piano accompaniment but later orchestrated, is a notable early example of the French song cycle. French cycles reached a pinnacle in Fauré 's La bonne chanson (Verlaine) of

2024-752: Was created in 1991. This was December Songs (1991), created by Maury Yeston , and commissioned by Carnegie Hall for its Centennial celebration in 1991. It has been translated, performed and recorded in French, German. and Polish. Other examples include Ghost Quartet by Dave Malloy (2014), Songs for a New World by Jason Robert Brown (1995), William Finn 's Elegies (2003), Bill Russell 's Elegies for Angels, Punks and Raging Queens (1989), and Myths and Hymns by Adam Guettel (1998). Cantiga de amigo Cantiga de amigo ( Portuguese: [kɐ̃ˈtiɣɐ ð(j) ɐˈmiɣu] , Galician: [kanˈtiɣɐ ðɪ aˈmiɣʊ] ) or cantiga d'amigo ( Galician-Portuguese spelling), literally "friend song",

2070-563: Was firmly established by the cycles of Schubert ; his Die schöne Müllerin (1823) and Winterreise (1827), settings of poems by Wilhelm Müller , are among his most greatly admired works. Schubert's Schwanengesang (1828), though collected posthumously, is also frequently performed as a cycle. Schumann 's great cycles were all composed in 1840. They comprise Dichterliebe , Frauenliebe und -leben , two collections entitled Liederkreis ( Opp. 24 & 39 on texts by Heinrich Heine and Eichendorf respectively)—a German word meaning

2116-455: Was tempting Providence." Alma's fears proved all too prescient, for three years after the work had been completed the Mahlers' daughter Maria died of scarlet fever, aged four. Mahler wrote to Guido Adler : "I placed myself in the situation that a child of mine had died. When I really lost my daughter, I could not have written these songs any more." Stephen Hefling indicates that Mahler composed

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