New Books In German Studies

The Lied is one of the most important genres of nineteenth-century Romantic music, and one of the most intriguing. Balanced between public and private performance, an expression of both poetic and musical meaning, musicologists have tended to study Lieder by analyzing the connections between the music and text. In her new book Intimacy, Performance, and the Lied in the Early Nineteenth Century published by Indiana University Press in 2018, Dr. Jennifer Ronyak studies a set of Lieder with texts she identifies as “intimate lyric poetry” through the lens of performance using methodologies culled from literary studies, philosophy, and musicology. Delving deeply into German Romantic ideas about interiority and the self, Ronyak considers Lieder as an intimate expression of meaning for composer, lyricist, singer, and audience. She contextualizes this act of performance within the salon culture of several important German cities. By centering a philosophical inquiry into the paradox of the Lieder as the outward expre