FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions
Q. What's a Lied?
A. The word Lied is German for song (pronounced /leet/). The
plural is Lieder (pronounced /leeder/). Kunstlied is the
proper term for "art song" in German, but music-lovers speaking English or
French commonly refer to German art songs as just plain Lieder.
Note that this site includes art songs in many languages (e.g., in
French, the terms chanson and mélodie are used as
well as lieder). There are also many madrigals, partsongs and
choral works.
Q. OK, then what's an "art song"?
A.
Like most categorizations in classical music (even the term "classical
music" is problematic), this is a very difficult definition to make due
not only to the blurring of lines that many contemporary compositions
create, but also due to the overlap of popular music, pop classics,
broadway musicals, and folk music. This definition is intended only
as a rough guide to the genre.
An art song is a relatively short piece of music written by a person
commonly referred to as a "composer", and set to a text intended to be
poetic, for a classically-trained vocalist with some form of accompaniment
(usually but not restricted to the pianoforte). During a performance,
which is usually in a recital hall these days, even if the piece was
originally intended for the salon, the audience sits quietly without
smoking, eating or drinking (unless very stealthily). The singer is rarely
also the composer of the song. The lighting rarely changes during a
performance, and no special set, scenery, or costume (besides typical
recitalwear) is required.
Q. But I'm looking for folk songs, or children's songs, or Christmas songs, etc.
A. Try http://ingeb.org/index.html
Q. Where can I find a score of ____? Where can I find a recording of
____?
A. I recommend these vendors for sheetmusic:
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Classical Vocal Repertoire |
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And these for CDs and/or books:
To locate public-domain sheet-music online, a good starting point is
Art Song Central
If you are looking for something out-of-print or otherwise quite rare,
your local university music library might have what you
need. You might also be able to do an interlibrary loan through a
public library.
Q. Can I buy your site or license your data?
A. No.
Q. Do you have a newsletter?
A. No.
Q. I could have sworn ____ composed a song named ____, but it isn't
in your index. Am I wrong?
A. Not necessarily. My lists are not comprehensive.
Q. I noticed a lot of wrong words in a text. What's going on?
A. Sometimes composers change the words to fit their music. If
you need a text as a stand-alone poem, please do not rely on the version
in these pages. When possible, I do note textual differences (you'll
see footnotes), but usually the text shown is that of the most well-known
setting(s).
Q. Did you know that you have lots of typos in ____?
A. Oops! Please let me know about them - although keep in mind that
sometimes they are not typos but rather older spellings. If a text seems to
have a lot of typos, this is usually the case.
Q. Do you have a translation of ____?
A. If you don't see it on the site, I probably don't have it. I will
add it to the wishlist, but I can't promise a very fast turnaround.
If you have an urgent request I will ask some of the volunteers if they might
be able to do it. Sometimes this works out, but sometimes it doesn't.
Q. I sent you a translation/text to post two months ago and it hasn't
been posted! What's going on?
A. Sometimes it takes me a while to process, verify and
integrate all the material I receive. I'm very busy and this is just my hobby. Also, I
tend to add texts and translations sporadically since I have two small children underfoot,
and I go for the tasks that look the quickest (such as an e-mail containing a text or
translation in the body of the e-mail). Word attachments are cumbersome - I often end up
letting them languish a while before I try to deal with them. But I am always grateful
for submissions, and I will (someday!) get to your submission(s)! Thank you for your patience.
Q. Are you a professional singer or a pianist?
A. Neither. I am a nonprofessional violinist. In real life,
I am a freelance programmer.
Q. What kind of computer system do you use?
Which HTML editor do you use? What kind of technology does your site use?
[and other technical questions]
A. I write my web pages in Emacs running under
Linux (Debian, testing). The website is driven by
Mason,
mysql and
Perl with
Class::DBI.
Q. May I use the translations you (Emily) wrote in my upcoming recital?
A. Sure, go ahead - just give me credit. And if
it isn't too much trouble, I would love a copy of the program. Please send me
e-mail at emily (AT) lieder (DOT) net to ask for my postal address.
If you have sent something to me in the past, please ask again - we moved house
in June 2003.
Q. Why don't you have more translations to English?
A. It's often hard to find translations. You will find here only
translations we have received permission to post.
Q. Why don't you post scores as well as texts?
A. That's outside the scope of my project. Furthermore, this
project is so huge that I will probably never have time to extend to
that length.
Q. How and when did you begin this project? Can you tell us
something about its history?
A. I launched the site around the middle of May 1995, when I
was a graduate student in computer science at McGill University.
Here's the original
usenet post with the announcement. Intending only to present the
texts to some of my favorite Lieder, I posted about thirty Lieder by
Schubert and Brahms. Soon the requests for texts set by other
composers began to pour in. Since I lived two blocks away from the
music library and I was enjoying my new hobby as a pleasant break from
school-work, I started working on the standard art song repertoire.
After I finished my degree, I moved to Ottawa (ON), where it is a
little more difficult to find new material, but my new job sent me
traveling frequently, so I was able to visit quite a few university
music libraries around North America and obtain material not available
to me in Ottawa. About the time that I stopped traveling so much, I
had a steady stream of volunteer contributions
of material. In the summer of 2003, I began transforming my site
from a collection of HTML pages to a database-driven site. At that
point, my site contained 13,255 individual song text files so it was a
big task - and the larger the site got, the more urgent! I finished
and made public the overhaul in March 2004.
Q. Do you plan to add biographical
information on composers or poets, and perhaps other information that
could go into program notes?
A. Not really. I have more than enough
to do just adding texts and translations.
Q. Can you add an index of songs by theme?
A. At some point I may add a feature that will let visitors
assign themes to songs, and automate it, but for now, the search engine is the only possibility.
I may also add discussion forums for each song text (this is an idea
that a few people have suggested might be useful).
Q. Where can I find information on how
to pronounce words in different languages?
A. Try IPASource (provides many IPA
versions of art song texts) or The Diction
Domain
Q. Where can I find the libretto to X?
A. Try Opera Glass. If you're looking for just an aria, try
The Aria Database.
Q. Where can I find texts (or even translations) to Bach cantatas?
A. Try Emmanuel Music's website or The Bach Cantata Page.
Q. Is there a mailing list devoted to Lieder?
A. Yes, a very good one: LIEDER-L.
Q. What are your long-term plans for this site?
A. I plan to continue adding texts and translations until I
run out of things to do (ha). If that happens, maybe I'll try to learn some
new langugages so I can do more translations.
Q. What can I do to help?
A. Any of these: write translations, obtain texts, take note of
typos or incorrect dates, report textual variants, or even just send
lists of works. You can also send me material by post if you don't have
time to type things in. And get your friends to help too if you can!
Q. Can you write me an essay for school? [usually asked in more
roundabout ways]
A. Nope.
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