One of the most distinctive forms in romantic music is the art song, a composition for solo voice and piano. Here, the accompaniment is an integral part of the composer’s concept and it serves as an interpretive partner to the voice. Although they are now performed in concert halls, romantic songs were written to be sung and enjoyed at home.

Poetry and music are intimately fused in the art song. It is no accident that the form flowered with an emergence of a rich body of romantic poetry in the early nineteenth century. Many of the finest art song composers – Schubert, Schumann and Brahms, for example – were German or Austrian and set poems in their native language.

Yearning – inspired by a lost love, nature, a legend, or other times and places – haunted the imagination of romantic poets. Thus art songs are filled with despair of unrequited love; the beauty of flowers, trees and brooks; and the supernatural happenings of folktales. There are also songs of joy, wit and humour; but by large, romantic song was a reaching out of the soul.

Some composers would interpret a poem. Translating its mood, atmosphere and imagery into music. They created a vocal melody that was musically satisfying and perfectly moulded to the text. Important words were emphasized by stressed tones or melodic climaxes.

The voice shares the interpretive task with the piano. Emotions and images in the text take on an added dimension from the keyboard commentary. Arpeggios in the piano might suggest the splashing of oars or the motion of a mill wheel. Chords in a low register might depict darkness or a lover’s torment. The mood is often set by a brief piano introduction and summed up at the end by a piano section called a postlude.

Strophic and Through-Composed Form

When a poem has several stanzas, the musical setting must accommodate their total emotional impact. Composers can use strophic form, repeating the same music for each stanza of the poem. Strophic form makes a song easy to remember and is used in almost all folk songs.

Composers may also use through-composed form, writing new music for each stanza. Through-composed form allows music to reflect a poem’s changing moods.