Book Review
Aug. 16th, 2020 07:18 pmThe Cambridge Companion to the Lied
Edited by James Parsons
This Cambridge Companion was more enjoyable than I'd expected. It covers the German Lied of the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Luckily, it completely eschews laundry-list styles overviews of the repertoire or exhaustive descriptions and analyses of large numbers of songs. Instead, the chapters focus on larger issues of style and method, even when covering the work of specific composers. Thus, the book as whole provides a wonderful examination of the genre and its trajectory. I especially enjoyed the sections on Schubert, Brahms, and the circulation of the Lied as both art and commodity.
Edited by James Parsons
This Cambridge Companion was more enjoyable than I'd expected. It covers the German Lied of the 19th and first half of the 20th century. Luckily, it completely eschews laundry-list styles overviews of the repertoire or exhaustive descriptions and analyses of large numbers of songs. Instead, the chapters focus on larger issues of style and method, even when covering the work of specific composers. Thus, the book as whole provides a wonderful examination of the genre and its trajectory. I especially enjoyed the sections on Schubert, Brahms, and the circulation of the Lied as both art and commodity.