Romantic song cycles are chock-full of narratives about women and foreigners, and as demonstrated by recent media reevaluations, much goes missing when individuals are not invited to the table and given a chance to tell their side of their stories. This seminar, organized in collaboration with the Salieri institute, was conceived as two intertwined branches, one artistic and one theoretical, and which began with an extensive opening session held on a Saturday and ended with an artistic/scholarly group presentation.
Throughout the seminar, we looked closely at art song cycles, beginning with Schumann’s Dichterliebe and extending to Hermann Riedel’s Der Trompeter von Säckingen, Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin, Schumann’s Frauenliebe- und Leben and Libby Larsen’s Songs from Letters among others. Through close readings of these musical texts and contextualizing research, we explored how these implicit characters’ narratives were painted by their poets and composers, and think about how unmentioned aspects of social class, nationality and location played into and shaped them, and what this particular lens focuses on versus what it omits.
In addition, using Dichterliebe as a focal jumping off point, we examined recent benchmarks at reimagining/translating/updating these cycles to be more inclusive, including discussions and reflections from creators of “The Poet’s Love(er)” at the University of North Texas, Spitalfields’ Schumann Street in the UK, the Ambitus Extended initiative “Dichterliebe Extended” and The Erlking’s Schumann-Rock approach. Reflections on how this changes our interaction with the cycle, and how it extends to other works potentially were explored during the theoretical part, with student-led expansions and reimaginings of cycles explored and created under guidance in the artistic section.
This seminar was taught in a mix of English and German with students invited to present / discuss / contribute in either language, depending on their individual comfort level.
There were no specific pre-requisites for this course, but students were expected to bring their own thoughts and perspectives actively into all conversations. Participation in one of the two opening Saturday Sessions (October 15 or 22, 10 am to 4pm in room C0107 on Rennweg 8, 1030 Vienna) was also a requirement for seminar participation.
