9. The Romantic German Lied – An Overview

The lied represents a fundamental form of expression of the cantability and of the relation of the melody with the poetic. And, although the model of the cultural lied could still be heard in the music of the 18th century in the compositions of the Viennese classical school - in Haydn folk songs and, especially, in forms somewhat akin to the aria of Mozart or Beethoven – the landmarks of this genre were established precisely by the romantics of the 19th century, representatives in most of the German school. Schubert, Schumann, Franz, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Wagner, Brahms, Wolf etc. transformed the song into a cultural art form, incorporating images of popular origin into literary-musical structures for voice and piano making use of technical possibilities and expressiveness specific to romanticism.