CULP: German Lieder

Prerequisites

This course investigates Schubert's great song cycle Winterreise, D.911 (1827), from a variety of perspectives, but begins from a single premise: that it is impossible to study the music of the work without a detailed understanding of the poems by Wilhelm Müller that Schubert set, and of the interaction between music and poetic text.

With this in mind, the course is divided into two parts. The first part (to take place in Michaelmas term) will be devoted to the socio-political background in which Müller writes his poems, to the central topoi the Winterreise evokes, as well as to Schubert's setting of German, and to ways of approaching Lieder texts more generally. The first four classes will be introductory; students whose knowledge of German is equivalent to A-level or beyond are welcome to attend these classes, or can join the course for weeks 5-8. Anyone with German skills below A-level standard, or who took A-level German but has not studied the language recently, should attend from week 1.

The second part of the course (Lent term) will build on the material in the first half of the course to look at Winterreise as a cycle, and to study individual songs, as well as considering the piece in relation to Schubert's other late works, to the history of the Lied, to wider currents of musical and literary romanticism, and to its later reception and its performance history.

• This course is for undergraduate students on eligible tripos courses only.

• Students must be enrolled on the relevant Tripos course in Music.
• CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference): B2

Number of sessions: 7

Suggestions for preliminary study:

The main preliminary study for the course consists of getting to know the music and poetry of the cycle as well as possible. Scores and recordings are widely available, as are English translations of the texts, though bear in mind that many of these are singing translations, and therefore not accurate renderings of Müller's texts. Richard Wignore's Schubert: The Complete Song Texts (London: Gollancz, 1988) offers a reliable set of translations.

Secondary literature on the cycle is extensive, and a detailed bibliography will accompany the second half of the course. Good introductions can be found in Laura Tunbridge, The Song Cycle (Cambridge: Cambridge, University Press, 2010), and in Susan Youens's chapter in Rufus Hallmark, ed., German Lieder in the Nineteenth Century, revised edition (New York: Taylor & Francis, 2010). But the best work to read in advance, for its consideration of both Müller and Schubert, remains Youens's Retracing a Winter's Journey: Schubert's Winterreise (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).

• To explore the ways that poetry and music work together in Schubert's Lieder
• To provide a detailed investigation of a single song cycle and its contexts
• To equip students with the necessary skills to consider song repertory from a variety of critical perspectives
• To encourage the study of song texts in their original language

Presentations, practicals and online learning

• Raven access is required
• Further information regarding Raven is available

This course consists of sixteen lectures of 90 minutes, running through Michaelmas and Lent terms, one revision session in Easter term, and one three-hour examination. The Faculty of Music recommends that students receive four supervisions, in groups of three or four, during Lent term, together with a revision supervision in Easter term. Supervisions will not be required in Michaelmas term, during the language classes.

• Annual

• CULP: German Basic 1 (total beginners) for Academic Purposes (LAP)
• CULP: German Intermediate for Academic Purposes (LAP)
• CULP: German Intermediate 2 for Academic Purposes (LAP)
• CULP: German Basic
• CULP: German Intermediate 1
• CULP: German Intermediate 2
• CULP: German Advanced