Your opportunity to correct my Englsih/German
August 7, 2024 11:31 PM Subscribe
I was conversing in English with a German lady about music, and I mentioned that I was partial to lieder, the style of voice/piano music which was current in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. She, on the other hand, only heard the use of "lieder" in the sense of any singing, up to and including Taylor Swift.
Accordingly, she gave me a Teutonic shrug which said, more or less, so what, everyone loves lieder. And swept off. (I should add she was a modern lady, so familiarity with "lieder" as I was using it was not guaranteed). This all happened in a matter of moments, so I had no time to explain myself, and in any case anything I said would have sounded condescending to anyone who knew what I was talking about. Is there a word other than lieder in either German or English which would have more accurately conveyed what I was trying to say?
Accordingly, she gave me a Teutonic shrug which said, more or less, so what, everyone loves lieder. And swept off. (I should add she was a modern lady, so familiarity with "lieder" as I was using it was not guaranteed). This all happened in a matter of moments, so I had no time to explain myself, and in any case anything I said would have sounded condescending to anyone who knew what I was talking about. Is there a word other than lieder in either German or English which would have more accurately conveyed what I was trying to say?
Maybe Volkslied? Could you put in a YouTube link to an example of a song you‘d like.
posted by mathiu at 11:45 PM on August 7
posted by mathiu at 11:45 PM on August 7
Google is giving me some results suggesting "art song" or "art of song".
posted by kinddieserzeit at 12:12 AM on August 8 [1 favorite]
posted by kinddieserzeit at 12:12 AM on August 8 [1 favorite]
Lieder is what you call them in English. It's very common for borrowings to have a more specialized meaning-- e.g. a "sombrero" in Spanish is just a hat.
If you were speaking German, I imagine it'd be clearest to just talk about Schubert and his successors, or specify the 19th century.
posted by zompist at 12:46 AM on August 8 [14 favorites]
If you were speaking German, I imagine it'd be clearest to just talk about Schubert and his successors, or specify the 19th century.
posted by zompist at 12:46 AM on August 8 [14 favorites]
Best answer: German mother tongue speakers here.
Agree with zompist. Say you like klassische Lieder, zum Beispiel Schubert, Brahms, Mahler (or whatever composer you like.
And dont really beat yourself up, i believe that Lieder, as in klassische Lieder, is a use of the word few German speakers under 50 would know. Hence the need for giving a composer name which at least gives some more Info.
Definitely not Volkslieder, that is a different category altogether, although of course the classic Lieder composers sometimes drew on Volkslieder. And there are also musical arrangements of Volkslieder for choirs or singers, in a classical style.
Also note that folk songs is not the same as Volkslieder. "Folk Song" is often used in German to mean songs by Joan Baez, or other English language singers of the 60s.
posted by 15L06 at 4:02 AM on August 8 [17 favorites]
Agree with zompist. Say you like klassische Lieder, zum Beispiel Schubert, Brahms, Mahler (or whatever composer you like.
And dont really beat yourself up, i believe that Lieder, as in klassische Lieder, is a use of the word few German speakers under 50 would know. Hence the need for giving a composer name which at least gives some more Info.
Definitely not Volkslieder, that is a different category altogether, although of course the classic Lieder composers sometimes drew on Volkslieder. And there are also musical arrangements of Volkslieder for choirs or singers, in a classical style.
Also note that folk songs is not the same as Volkslieder. "Folk Song" is often used in German to mean songs by Joan Baez, or other English language singers of the 60s.
posted by 15L06 at 4:02 AM on August 8 [17 favorites]
You can also say "art song" (or German art song, or 19th-century German art song) in English, but I don't know that that's a term that English speakers who are not versed in the terms of classical music would understand, never mind native German speakers (although they would at least understand that you weren't talking about ALL songs).
I (an English speaker who minored in music history a long time ago) think of lieder as being a bigger category than just the period you're talking about; late 18th/earlier 19th-century Classical musicians wrote lieder, for sure, probably earlier, and I'm sure there are still some people writing lieder today. But yes in English "lieder" is definitely used to mean "poetry set to music for solo voice, always accompanied, usually by piano, usually in German, hugely popular in the Romantic period of the mid-to-late 19th/early 20th century."
And yeah I think these kinds of confusion are to some degree inevitable, especially in brief casual conversation - I came *this close* to complaining to a breakfast room attendant in an Italian hotel that the "latte" button on the coffee machine was only dispensing milk. Borrowed words are tricky!
posted by mskyle at 5:24 AM on August 8 [5 favorites]
I (an English speaker who minored in music history a long time ago) think of lieder as being a bigger category than just the period you're talking about; late 18th/earlier 19th-century Classical musicians wrote lieder, for sure, probably earlier, and I'm sure there are still some people writing lieder today. But yes in English "lieder" is definitely used to mean "poetry set to music for solo voice, always accompanied, usually by piano, usually in German, hugely popular in the Romantic period of the mid-to-late 19th/early 20th century."
And yeah I think these kinds of confusion are to some degree inevitable, especially in brief casual conversation - I came *this close* to complaining to a breakfast room attendant in an Italian hotel that the "latte" button on the coffee machine was only dispensing milk. Borrowed words are tricky!
posted by mskyle at 5:24 AM on August 8 [5 favorites]
In English, "art song" would convey lieder, chansons, etc. I imagine in German, saying "Lieder" is exactly equivalent to saying "songs" in English--it might mean anything sung; it's just that to English-speaking classical music people, "lieder" means (German) art songs. So I'm not sure what they say there when they're talking about Schubert rather than, like, every sung thing.
posted by less-of-course at 5:31 AM on August 8 [1 favorite]
posted by less-of-course at 5:31 AM on August 8 [1 favorite]
There is also the term "Liedermacher" which translates to songmaker, and is applied to artists like Konstantin Wecker, Rheinhard May or Bob Dylan, where the focus is on the text and the singer and the artist usually accompanies himself, eg. with guitar or piano.
posted by SweetLiesOfBokonon at 6:14 AM on August 8
posted by SweetLiesOfBokonon at 6:14 AM on August 8
Classical singer here who has performed plenty of Schubert, Schumann, Wolf, etc. in his day...
"Lied/Lieder" is just German for "song/songs" and was adopted in the English speaking world to describe German language art songs. Similarly, the word "mélodie" is French for "melody" and was adopted in the English speaking world to describe French language art songs. To the best of my knowledge there is no similar English language convention to describe art songs in other languages. Neither convention would make much sense to a native speaker of either language.
posted by slkinsey at 9:49 AM on August 8 [5 favorites]
"Lied/Lieder" is just German for "song/songs" and was adopted in the English speaking world to describe German language art songs. Similarly, the word "mélodie" is French for "melody" and was adopted in the English speaking world to describe French language art songs. To the best of my knowledge there is no similar English language convention to describe art songs in other languages. Neither convention would make much sense to a native speaker of either language.
posted by slkinsey at 9:49 AM on August 8 [5 favorites]
mskyle: the "latte" button on the coffee machine was only dispensing milk.
A friend from the US, touring Europe, put gasolina in his motorcycle tank somewhere in Northern Italy.
That's diesel, not gas/petrol.
Fortunately the bike was built forty years ago by the Bayerische Motoren Werke, and wasn't too fussy about the fuel it got offered.
posted by Stoneshop at 10:38 AM on August 8 [1 favorite]
A friend from the US, touring Europe, put gasolina in his motorcycle tank somewhere in Northern Italy.
That's diesel, not gas/petrol.
Fortunately the bike was built forty years ago by the Bayerische Motoren Werke, and wasn't too fussy about the fuel it got offered.
posted by Stoneshop at 10:38 AM on August 8 [1 favorite]
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posted by trig at 11:42 PM on August 7 [2 favorites]