Song accompanist

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Lech Napierala accompanies Rafael Fingerlos in the castle outside Husum (2011).

An accompanist is a musician, especially a pianist , the singer of the art song since the late 18th century as an equal partner on his instrument accompanied .

history

Song accompaniment until approx. 1750

The instrumental accompaniment of the song already existed in prehistoric times. Individual or group singing could be rhythmically supported by clapping hands, stamping feet or hitting and drumming objects made of wood, metal and animal skins. The vocal accompaniment with wind, plucked and string instruments also has a long history. There were many opportunities for accompanied singing during and after work, courtship, folk festivals, the military and finally also during ritual acts.

In medieval Europe, the artful music that was heard in the church and in the courtly sphere broke away from simple folk music . This separation also took place in the area of singing . The singing in the church was initially largely unaccompanied ( a cappella ) .

At the beginning of modern times, around the end of the 16th century, a new musical genre emerged - the art song . The polyphonic ( polyphonic ) singing in church music and Madrigal was in the secular realm by the emergence unanimous vocal works ( Monodie ) with basso , increasingly supplemented later by unanimous, but accompanied by a few instruments singing. In addition to bass instruments and the older plucked instruments , keyboard instruments were also used more and more often to accompany singing.

From harpsichord to fortepiano

The heyday of classical-romantic song singing began with the construction of a new, modulatable musical instrument with clearly audible bass tones - the fortepiano . In contrast to the traditional spinet or harpsichord playing style , it was now possible to accompany the singing voice alone with the piano and later not only to "accompany" the song on the piano, but also to face a singer with chamber music as an equal "partner". With the change from the 18th to the 19th century, this development stimulated composers to write songs for voice and piano that gave the piano and thus the pianist the use of new possibilities of expression. Especially in German-speaking countries, at the beginning of the German Romantic era, there was a great willingness to accept.

At the same time, especially after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in the Biedermeier period, house music developed in the community parlors. The piano finally found its way into the apartments, the salons of the wealthy citizens. It was precisely at this time that the abundant lieder oeuvre of a young Viennese composer - Franz Schubert - fell . His songs were groundbreaking for the further spread of the art song, for example by Robert Schumann , Johannes Brahms , Richard Strauss , Hugo Wolf and many other composers.

Art of song accompaniment

The accompaniment of a demanding art song requires a high level of empathy from a pianist in addition to great technical competence in order to be able to respond flexibly to the song composition of the vocal soloist. The accompanist should exercise restraint, but just like the vocal soloist should take up and help shape the mood of the song to be interpreted and the text. In contrast, he has to take over the musical leadership in the musical opening, transition and closing phrases. When making music together, both partners have to create musical arcs of tension together, so they should, as it were, “breathe” together. Vocal soloist and song accompanist at the piano form an equal duo in current performance practice, which grows together into a unit in order to be able to interpret a song appropriately and convincingly.

Irwin Gage , a well-known accompanist, once said in a press conference while teaching at the Saarbrücken University of Music : “I play words”. This play with words, the connection of text and music, is the main task of the pianist, who puts his skills in the service of singers. Gage was so popular as a song accompanist that he even gave highly acclaimed concerts with songs without singers in the 1980s. He wanted to confront the audience with piano accompaniments and passages without a sung melody - not a completely new idea, by the way, because Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy had already composed several collections of songs without words for the piano .

education

It was not until a few years after the Second World War that "Lied accompaniment" was introduced as a special teaching or advanced subject at German music academies, for example in 1960 at the Detmold University of Music ("piano chamber music and song accompaniment") and a few years later at the Saar University of Music , the Karlsruhe University of Music and the Mainz University of Music (song accompaniment and accompaniment). Other universities only introduced this course later, around 2008 the Hamburg University of Music and Theater .

Well-known accompanists

literature

Web links