What is it that makes Art Lied such a beautiful genre of music?
“In the Art Lied, a concentrated synthesis develops between the poetic text and the composer’s musical idea. When we as Lied interpreters decipher these intentions in the present moment, an exciting and moving statement can emerge.”
“The joy of telling a story, an experience of intimate connection, a place to be vulnerable.”
Lied to our belief is the most intimate and vulnerable form of art. It is very interesting how a Lied is composed. The composer creates a Lied to a written text from a poet. The text is the inspiration for the music in the first place. This is also how we as singers and pianists should approach interpreting pieces.
A lot of the time we forget the importance of the text and creating sound becomes our soul focus in our music-making. Even if we were to make the most beautiful sound in the world, it wouldn’t mean anything unless we tell the story of the original poem.
Having said that, in order to tell this story through music in the most convincing / moving way, we do need to be able to tell it with beautiful sound. As musicians, our sound is the medium in which we tell the story and the more beautiful the sound, the easier it is for the listener / audience to concentrate on our story and let it resonate within them.
In our course we will work not only on creating great sound, but also how to use that sound to tell stories. Another focus will be on learning how to interpret pieces on our own and create a new and fresh perspective to the piece. There are many different traditional rules of interpretation and in our course, we will work on how to utilize those rules to create our own way of telling the story.