So Lit Song Lit

Ingolf Dahl was a German-born, naturalized American composer, who was well-connected throughout the entire entertainment industry as well as in classical music. His art songs are marked by intricate rhythms and atonal vocal lines that bring the texts to life. Purchase information: A Cycle of Sonnets - not available for purchase, but is available through Inter-Library Loan. The OCLC number is 12263...

Hans Werner Henze was a German composer who grew up during the time period of the Hitler Youth and went on to become a communist, leaving Germany because of his political views and its intolerance toward homosexuality. His music is influenced by serialism, atonality, jazz, and Arabic music, as well as standard compositional practices. For purchase information, click on the set titles below.  Recor...

NewMusicShelf is a website dedicated to the production and distribution of scores by living composers. Their Anthology of New Music Series includes a volume of Trans & Non-Binary Voices . Recordings featured in this episode, performed by Gracyn Blu Louis, mezzo-soprano, and Ellen Rissinger, pianist: At a Dinner Party (Hope Salmonson) Captain of my Soul (Yoshi Weinberg) Solitaire (Rossa Crean)...

Composer Jennifer Higdon has won a Pulitzer Prize and THREE Grammy awards! With a long list of prizes and commissions to her credit, she  has a substantial output of songs, as well as vocal chamber music and songs with orchestra. Her songs are available for purchase on her website . Recordings featured in this episode, performed by Toni Marie Palmertree, soprano, Zachary Dean Smith, tenor, and Ell...

One of the most prolific female composers of the 17th century, Isabella Leonarda, was also a high-ranking nun in an Ursuline convent, fulfilling all of her duties as a nun before composing on her own time - which we assume means she never slept! Her motets would be an excellent way to begin a recital. While several of her works are available for purchase, the motets we discuss on this episode are...

Mathilde von Kralik was an Austrian composer with an extensive list of art songs in a very Romantic style. Shout-outs to tenor Donald George for sending us her name and some ideas to get started (you can listen to his recording of Kralik Lieder with pianist Lucy Mauro on Spotify ) and to Ars Augusta , a non-profit society with the mission to promote "forgotten musical heritage especially Lied or B...

Dutch composer Henriëtte Bosmans survived the war-torn Netherlands through both WWI and WWII, saving her mother from a concentration camp. She composed Dix Mélodies starting in 1949, after the war, after the death of her mother, and just a few years before her own passing. You can hear Henriëtte and her partner Noémie Perugia performing some of these songs on YouTube . The score is available throu...

Dame Ethel Smyth was a leader of the British women's suffragette movement in the early 20th century, and the first woman composer to have her opera, Der Wald , performed at the Metropolitan Opera in NYC. The Ethel Smyth dot org website is run by Women's Philharmonic Advocacy, and includes a complete list of works with purchase information for every piece. We also talked a bit about the Rachel Pete...

Karol Szymanowski was a notable Polish composer, with a vast repertoire of song literature in many languages. His musical styles span from late German Romanticism to impressionistic and atonal, and can be a great introduction to singing atonal music! With many thanks to Mark Trawka at the Pittsburgh Opera for his help with Polish Diction! To clarify one point in the podcast, the Hafisliebeslieder,...

Most of us probably know of Gian Carlo Menotti as an opera composer, with 25 operas to his credit, but he also had a small output of art songs to his own texts. His songs sound very much like miniatures of his operas and can be a great introduction to his style prior to working on the arias. The scores for today are available at Sheet Music Plus: Canti della lontananza , Five Songs Recordings feat...

Siegfried Wagner, the oldest son of Richard Wagner, was surrounded by some of the most important musicians in Europe (including his grandfather, Franz Liszt), and his compositional style is influenced by all of them. He also composed operas and was artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival in the early 1900s. His songs are collected in Sämtliche Klavierlieder --Volume 1 is the high key, and Volum...

Better known in his home country of France than in the United States, Henri Sauguet has over 200 Mélodies, many of which have not yet been recorded. His music is characterised by its simplicity (even when using polytonality!) and clarity. His music is published by Salabert and distributed through Presto Music--the scores we used for today's episode are Mélodies et chansons and Visions infernales ,...

Charles Tomlinson Griffes is best known for his song "The Lament of Ian the Proud", but he has many more art songs and German Lieder to his credit. Having studied with Engelbert Humperdinck for a time, his German Lieder have an intense German sound, while many of his English songs have a definite French influence. "In a Myrtle Shade" and "Symphony in Yellow" are in the book Songs of C.T. Griffes V...

Season 2 drops starting August 17th! This season Toni Marie and Ellen are focusing on queer composers, with guest host Zachary Dean Smith. Make sure to subscribe and tell all your friends, colleagues, and students!

For the last episode of the season, we wanted to present a special topic: Vocalises! Not just for warming up, they can be incredible pieces for an audience as well. This episode covers the Fauré and Copland vocalises, as well as Turina's Op.74, his song cycle Vocalizaciones , with special guest, Jennifer Aylmer , Associate Professor of Voice at Carnegie Mellon University. Since recording the podca...

Ellen was first introduced to the music of Daniel Pinkham by tenor Kenneth Riegel (who played Don Ottavio in the 1979 movie with Raimondi). Pinkham taught composition at New England Conservatory and Boston Conservatory for six decades, but he also had a church job, so many of his works have a religious element like his Three Songs from Ecclesiastes . The score is available from Sheet Music Plus ....

Le Chevalier de St. Georges, Joseph Bologne, composed many songs, which are now being compiled by New York-based conductor Tyson Deaton! These pieces are the perfect way to introduce young singers to French repertoire and help them get comfortable with the language before venturing into more advanced tonalities. Anyone interested in purchasing these songs can contact Tyson through his website . Re...

There are only 17 extant songs by Alma Mahler (wife of Gustav), and her Fünf Lieder were the first pieces she had published. They are available in Alma Mahler: Sämtliche Lieder (Selected Songs) from Stanton's Sheet Music . Recordings featured in this episode, performed by Toni Marie Palmertree, soprano, and Ellen Rissinger, pianist: Die stille Stadt Laue Sommernacht Ich wandle unter Blumen Recorde...

Jennifer Aylmer , Associate Professor of Voice at Carnegie Mellon University, joins us to discuss Ildebrando Pizzetti's Cinque liriche . The score is available at SheetMusicPlus . Recordings featured in this episode, performed by Toni Marie Palmertree, soprano, and Ellen Rissinger, pianist: 1. I pastori 3. San Basilio 5. Passeggiata 4. Il cleft progione Recorded at The Camp Recording Studio in Eli...

Composer Reinhold Glière is lesser-known even in Russia, but his songs are well worth digging into! They are available through IMSLP ; since recording this episode, IMSLP now has the disclaimer that only the pieces before 1928 are public domain in the US, which seems to include all of his Romances (Russian art songs). If you are interested in the Azerbaijani traditional opera style that he created...

This week we are focusing on three contemporary women composers in North America: Lori Laitman , Melissa Dunphy , and Jocelyn Hagen , all of whom have a great deal of Art Song repertoire to explore! To find more women composers, check out the Kassia Database , and for even more current composers or broader repertoire, the Facebook groups we recommended were: American Art Song Composers, American V...

This week, we talk about the Boulanger sisters, focusing on Lili Boulanger and her Clairières dans le ciel , a set of 13 songs for soprano. Lili was the first woman to win the Grand Prix de Rome in composition. The score for this stunning work is available through Classical Vocal Reprints . Recordings featured in this episode, performed by Toni Marie Palmertree, soprano, and Ellen Rissinger, piani...

For those of you who love Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise , Ernst Krenek's Reisebuch aus den österreichischen Alpen is another epic song cycle to fall in love with! The scores (in four volumes) is available at Classical Vocal Reprints . Recordings featured in this episode, performed by Michael Vallikappil , tenor (Instagram @mgvtenor), and Ellen Rissinger, pianist: No. 1: Motif No. 4: Wetter N...

Happy 2023! We are starting the second half of Season 1 off with an amazingly beautiful set of songs by Francesco Santoliquido. The score for Tre poesie persiane is available at Sheet Music Plus . Recordings featured in this episode, performed by Michael Vallikappil , tenor (Instagram @mgvtenor), and Ellen Rissinger, pianist: I. Quando le domandai II. Io mi levai dal centro della Terra III. Le dom...

We're halfway through the season, so we wanted to do something special! Episode 10 covers duets for soprano and baritone that are not "Là ci darem la mano" :-) including some by Peter Cornelius (whose Op 16 has four duets) and works included in the book Joys Abiding: Soprano and Baritone Duets by Historical Women Composers , available at Classical Vocal Reprints . Recordings featured in this episo...