German song in the nineteenth century offers some of the greatest pleasures available to the singer, pianist, and listener. The great German poets - Goethe, Schiller, Ruckert, Eichendorff, Heine, Morike, Hesse, and many lesser figures - inspired such perennial masterpieces as Schubert's song cycles Die Schone Mullerin and Winterreise, Schumann's Dichterliebe, and Mahler's Kindertotenlieder. This book provides the German texts of the most frequently studied and performed songs, and gives literal, word-for-word translations under each line, plus clear English prose versions of each poem. The composers represented are Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Wagner, Brahms, Wolf, Mahler, and Richard Strauss. This new edition includes numerous corrections and improvements to the translations.

Lois Phillips is a freelance musician: teacher of piano and Alexander Technique.