What is Art Song?

Here on the Lotte Lehmann site is an excellent and succinct explanation of Art Song (including Lieder), and how it is distinct from Opera, folk song, Bel Canto, pop, and other musical genre.

clipped from lottelehmann.org What is Art Song? Art song’s brief description: a poem set to classical music, usually for trained voice and piano with a duration of about three minutes. Other names include: solo song, concert song, classical song, piano song and Lied. But this concise definition really doesn’t touch the soul of art song. The elements comprise a quartet if you like: poet, composer, singer and pianist. These work together, each complimenting the other resulting in something much greater than the individual elements. lyric poetry, of whatever language, has inspired composers right down to our own times to set and even enhance a poem. The composer often makes the words more accessible, highlighting elements that only music can. Lyric poetry tends to be short, concise, often deals with love, nature and other elements favored by the Romantic artists of the 18th and 19th Centuries. it is indeed still being written, performed and recorded in our own day. In fact, this may be seen as another golden age