Wolf took up the poetry of Goethe and in his Goethe-Lieder collection, set 51 poems. They came from a variety of poetic sources, including the influential Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (1795-96) and the wonderfully named West-östlicher Diwan (1819), as well as

If Schumann had his song year of 1840, then Hugo Wolf (1860-1903) had his song year of 1888. He had been a song composer long before this, and, as were most song composers in the years between 1855 and 1880,

After his phenomenal art song year of 1840, Schumann did not abandon lied but was much less focused in his production. In 1849, he produced his Spanisches Liederspiel (Spanish Song Game) This is not a book of song for one

Robert Schumann as a Song Composer In the generation following Schubert, his new model for lieder writing influences many composers. Robert Schumann (1810-1856) took his models to heart and in doing so, produced some of the best music of the

Although he set the great poets such as Goethe, Beethoven set one poem by a German writer who was better known for his plays. In music, many of those plays were the basis for great operas: Wilhelm Tell became Rossini’s

When we think of Beethoven (1770-1827), we think of his orchestral music – great symphonies that brought a century-old genre forward. By the end, it wasn’t enough to have a large orchestra, he also had to have a chorus as

Franz Grillparzer, Ignaz Castelli, and Eduard von Bauernfeld were all friends of Schubert and appear in the 1868 ‘Schubertiade’ drawing done by Moritz von Schwind, where they are standing behind the women on the right side of the picture.

One of the most enduring images of Schubert as a musician is an 1868 drawing of one of his musical evenings. The engraving by Moritz von Schwind.