A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Liederkreis

by George Grove

LIEDERKREIS, LIEDERCYCLUS, or LIEDERREIHE. A circle or series of songs, relating to the same object and forming one piece of music. The first instance of the thing and the first use of the word appears to be in Beethoven's op. 98, 'An die ferne Geliebte. Ein Liederkreis von Al. Jeitteles.^[1] Für Gesang und Pianoforte … von L. van Beethoven.' This consists of six songs, was composed April 1816, and published in the following December. The word Liederkreis appears first on the printed copy. Beethoven's title on the autograph is 'An die enfernte Geliebte, Sechs Lieder von Aloys Jeitteles,' etc. It was followed by Schubert's 'Die schöne Müllerin, ein Cyclus von Liedern,' 20 songs, composed 1823, and published March 1824. Schubert's two other series, the ' Winterreise' and the 'Schwanen-Gesang,' have not got the special title. Schumann has left several Liederkreis—by Heine (op. 24); by Eichendorff (op. 39); 'Dichterliebe, Liedercyklus' (op. 48); Liederreihe von J. Kerner (op. 35); 'Frauenliebe und Leben' (op. 42). Of all these Beethoven's most faithfully answers to the name. The songs change their tempo, but there is no break, and the motif of the first reappears in the last, and closes the circle. Thayer's conjecture (iii. 401) that in writing it Beethoven was inspired by Amalie von Sebald, whom he had met at Linz in 1811, is not improbably correct. He was then 45 years old, an age at which love is apt to be dangerously permanent.

[ G. ]

1. Of the poet of these charming verses little information can be gleaned. He was born at Brunn June 20, 1794, so that when he wrote the Liederkreis he was barely 21. Like many amateurs of music he practised medicine, and he died at his native place April 16. 1858.