Franz Liszt’s Songs for Voice and Piano

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Franz Liszt’s Songs for Voice and Piano is written by Małgorzata Gamrat and published by BRILL. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 9004548866 (ISBN 10) and 9789004548862 (ISBN 13).

How does a Romantic composer approach the poetry he sets: as raw material to be remade, a pretext for self-expression, a sanctified artefact, or a message to be illustrated with music? In my book, I examine Franz Liszt’s songs for voice and piano, which remain little known to scholars, artists, and music lovers alike. The objective is to present Liszt’s songs in all their complexity and diversity as well as identifying the key elements of the composer’s broadly understood song-writing technique – both those that make him unique and those that relate him to the European tradition. This approach also makes it possible to shed light on a major though previously neglected aspect of the composer’s workshop, namely, his work with the poetic text, which to Liszt was just as important as the musical setting.