Song cycle
A cycle of songs or song cycle is a compiled by the composer cycle of songs that can not be removed without loss of the individual songs. Not infrequently, the texts of cycles of poems submitted.
The content of inner connection is already created by the text template, and is deepened by overt or covert musical design element. A connection can be made by melodic- motivic means, thereby motives are cited from other parts of the cycle or resumed. There are also often on harmonic level contexts, such as the key sequence of the individual parts; the unity of the cycle is often indicated by a return to the original key at the end of the work. These features are not necessary for a song cycle. The absence of these features can also be self -supporting meaningful. So you can the fact that Schubert end Beautiful Miller's Wife and winter travel far from their original key, interpreted as a sign that for the protagonist is no way back.
Known examples of song cycles are:
- Ludwig van Beethoven To the Distant Beloved (Text: Aloys Isidor Jeitteles )
- The Beautiful Miller ( Wilhelm Müller)
- Winterreise ( Wilhelm Müller)
- Circle of Songs, Op 24 ( Heinrich Heine )
- Circle of Songs, Op 39 (Joseph von Eichendorff )
- Dichterliebe ( Heinrich Heine )
- Woman und-leben ( Adelbert von Chamisso )
- Magelone ( Ludwig Tieck )
- Spanish Songbook (Paul Heyse and Emanuel Geibel )
- Italian Songbook (Paul Heyse )
- The Nursery (own lyrics )
- Without Sun ( Arseny Golenishtchev - Kutuzov )
- Songs and Dances of Death ( Arseny Golenishtchev - Kutuzov )
- Ariettes oubliées (Paul Verlaine )
- Fêtes Gallant (Paul Verlaine )
- Proses lyriques (own lyrics )
- Songs of a Wayfarer (own lyrics )
- Kindertotenlieder ( Walt Whitman )
- The Song of the Earth (Hans Bethge by ancient Chinese poetry)
- The Book of the Hanging Gardens ( Stefan George )
- Orchestral Songs for picture postcards by Peter Altenberg
- Three Songs on poems by Hildegard Jone
- Elegie, Op 36, for baritone and chamber orchestra on poems by Nikolaus Lenau and Joseph von Eichendorff
- Gaselen, Op 38 song successes of poems by Gottfried Keller for baritone and orchestra
- Buried alive, op 40, 14 songs on poems by Gottfried Keller for baritone, large orchestra and choir
- Nocturne, Op 47, Five Movements for solo voice and string quartet, to poems by Nikolaus Lenau and a fragment of Gottfried Keller
- Travelogue from the Austrian Alps (own lyrics )
- The Life of Mary ( Rainer Maria Rilke )
- Poèmes pour Mi ( own lyrics )
- Harawi - Chant d' amour et de mort (own lyrics )
- Satires ( Pictures of the Past) ( Sasha Chorny )
- Five Romances on words from the magazine Krokodil
- Four poems of Captain lebyatkin ( Fyodor Dostoevsky )
The form of the song cycle is not limited to the classical music and the art song. A well-known example of a song cycle in the field of pop music is the album The Juliet Letters ( 1993) by Elvis Costello. The boundaries of the concept album are fluid. The album My heart is burning (2003), in which the composer Torsten Rasch new lyrics set to music of Rammstein, belongs to this category.