There seems to be an essential relationship between the performance and the scholarship of the German Lied. Yet the process by which scholarly inquiry and performative practices mutually benefit one another can appear mysterious and undefined, in part because any dialogue between the two invariably unfolds in relatively informal environments – such as the rehearsal studio, seminar room or conference workshop. Contributions from leading musicologists and prominent Lied performers here build on and deepen these interactions to reconsider topics including Werktreue aesthetics and concert practices; the authority of the composer versus the performer; the value of lesser-known, incomplete, or compositionally modified songs; and the traditions, habits and prejudices of song recitalists regarding issues like transposition, programming and dramatic modes of presentation. The book as a whole reveals the reciprocal relevance of Lied musicology and Lied performance, thereby opening doors to fresh and exciting modes of interpretative artistry and intellectual discovery.
Introduction Benjamin Binder and Jennifer Ronyak; 1. In search of song: Richard Strauss's 'Schlechtes Wetter' between poem, music, and performance Benjamin Binder; 2. Max Heinrich, 'wizard of song': dramatizing lieder for American audiences Heather Platt; 3. Fragmenting frauenliebe und -leben: reading and performing alternative lives and loves Natasha Loges; 4. Robert Schumann's 'Ich grolle nicht': unsettling the Song cycle Laura Tunbridge; 5. Schubert's Mignon and Reimann's Mignon: advocacy and analysis in the arrangement of little-known lieder Frankie Perry; 6. Locating the wanderer's solitude in choral and non-solo performances of Winterreise Jennifer Ronyak; 7. Analysis, performance, and the deep nineteenth century: the case of Marie Franz Stephen Rodgers; 8. Crossing boundaries: Lieder in mixed-genre performance and the intersection of research and praxis Lisa Feurzeig; 9. Singers speak about musicology and performance Benjamin Binder and Jennifer Ronyak.
Benjamin Binder is a musicologist and pianist whose work on German Romantic music, art song, and performance has appeared in Nineteenth-Century Music Review, Journal of the American Musicological Society, Music Theory Online, and many edited volumes. From 2010–14 he directed the Vancouver International Song Institute's Song Scholarship and Performance program. Jennifer Ronyak is the author of Intimacy, Performance, and the Lied in the Early Nineteenth Century (2018). In 2021–22 she was a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow at the University of Oxford, where she pursued work on a book project currently titled Composing Philosophy: Amateur Approaches to Western Thought in Classical Music.
Reviews for The Lied at the Crossroads of Performance and Musicology
'This book affirms the power of song in forging dialogues across performance and research. To engage with song, the volume shows, is to reimagine the lines between the sonic and the textual, the historical and the contemporary, and to embrace a genre that stands at the forefront of musicological innovation.' Joe Davies, University of California, Irvine
