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The Lieder cycle (song cycle) is a grouping of individually complete songs linked by one of several unifying factors that flourished in the Romantic era. The defining factor in the song cycle is the presence of some identifiable element that provides cyclical coherence. This element may appear either in the text, in the music or in both. The earliest texts related a story, providing cyclical coherence through the narrative itself. Sometimes the songs may be linked by a central idea or theme. In other examples, cyclicism among songs might be a musical coherence that can be manifested in any of several ways including the use of instrumental interludes, a recurring melodic motive or harmonic progression or the presence of a tonal plan. The Lieder cycle was important in the uniquely Romantic genre, the German art song or Lied, a piece written for a single voice with piano accompaniment. The Lieder cycle – presenting a dramatic episode in verse set to music- was considered a reflection of the Romantic penchant for merging of the classic forms of epic, lyric and drama. The Romantics embraced two essentially incompatible scales of form: miniatures (in their songs, poems and short piano works) and grand gestures (in lengthy novels and symphonies). The song cycle was a hybrid genre, a combination of several miniatures into an oversized whole. As the nineteenth century progressed, the song cycle gained even more momentus as individual songs grew shorter.
Ludwig van Beethoven composed the first recognized Lieder cycle, Au die ferme geliebee (to the Distant, Beloved, 1815-16), a setting of six poems by Aloys Jeitteles. Beethoven achieves cyclic coherence both textually and musically. The textual connection is an essential factor as the poetry is a narrative based on the daydreams of a lover separated from his beloved. Beethoven also links the poems musically, both tonally and through transitional passages between the songs. Further musical coherence takes place when the cycle comes to an end with the return of musical material from the opening song.
Franz Peter Schubert’s well known cycle, Die schone Mullerin (The Lovely Miller Maid, 1823: twenty poems by Wilhelm Muller) depicting the fortunes and misfortunes of a wayfaring young miller, was often acted out in the private salon gatherings of artists drawn to Schubert (Schubertiads). In addition to the textual cohesion provided by the story, Schubert unites several of the songs musically with related accompaniment figures to suggest the nearby brook beside with the narrative unfolds. Schubert’s other great cycle, Winterreise (Winter Journey, 1828: twenty four poems by Wilhelm Muller), in the absence of an explicit narrative threat, combines the predominant Romantic literary themes of wandering, alienation, nature, and unrequited love. Neither of Schubert’s song cycles evidence tonal coherence.
Robert Schumann felt that key relationships between songs in a cycle were paramount. So, he organized the major portion of his songs into cycles, grouped by such components as poet, subject, mood or key association. The sixteen songs of his crowning achievement, the well known cycle Dischterliebe (Poems of Love, 1840; poetry by Heinrich Heine), while distinct, are tonally linked, with adjacent songs in the cycle set in related keys. Moreover, recurring motives, melodic figures and harmonic progressions infuse the cycle, in the face of jarring mood shifts between songs.
The late nineteenth century saw the Lieder cycle become less precisely defined as exclusive from the song collection. The distinction between the cycle and the collection is most blurred in the work of Johannes Brahms. Brahms combined most of his Lieder into “collections”. Even though Brahms never used the term cycle, he was precise about the ordering of his songs within the collections.
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