New Feature Alert


It’s now easier than ever to see both the author's and the composer's versions of a text!

After more than a year in development, I'm thrilled to announce that we've finally implemented the ability to view "sung texts" with all the modifications by a given composer already applied. Over 10,000 pages will benefit from this improvement. It should especially benefit those of you who need accurate texts for concert programs and CD booklets.

I'm excited to share this new feature with all of you and hope that it enhances your experience on the LiederNet Archive. Take some time to explore and enjoy! — Emily

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Introduction

This website houses an extensive, growing archive of texts to 205,842 settings of Lieder and other art songs (Kunstlieder, mélodies, canzoni, романсы, canciones, liederen, canções, sånger, laulua, písně, piosenki, etc.) and other vocal pieces such as choral works, madrigals, and part-songs, in 125 languages, with 43,786 translations to Catalan, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, and many other languages. 34,204 of these translations come from our wonderful and devoted volunteers.

Here is a Small Tour.

At last count, 125,707 texts are associated with musical settings in this collection. Of these, 52,815 are empty because they have not yet been located, and are left as placeholders for cross-referencing ; and 4,732 exist in the database but are hidden due to copyright restrictions, leaving 68,816 visible to visitors. Whenever possible, first lines (incipits) are shown for texts that are hidden or missing.

Emily Ezust first opened the Archive on May 24, 1995 as a personal project hosted in a student account at McGill University (Canada), and titled it "The Lied and Song Text Page", which later expanded to "The Lied, Art Song, and Choral Texts Archive". It was generously hosted by the REC Music Foundation from 1996 until June, 2015.

New material is added almost every day. Please see the What's New page for details. Volunteer submissions are welcome, especially translations. Please let us know if you would like to become a guest editor.

About the Collection

  • Scope and Goal of the Project.

    The primary goal of this project is to collect and present the texts to art songs, partsongs, madrigals, and choral works that are based on stand-alone poems.

    The secondary goal of this project is to provide visitors with high-quality translations of the texts into as many languages as possible, and in several styles.

  • FAQ. Frequently Asked Questions
  • Copyright Notice. Disclaimers, etc. This applies to the entire site and contains important information for people who wish to use the data here.
  • Alphabetization. Throughout these pages, alphabetization will follow North American English convention, even in transliterated indexes.
  • Titles of song texts. Unless all the composers who set a given text use the title chosen by the author, the headline at the top of a song text will be the first line, in italics.
  • History. What did we look like in earlier years? Take a look with the Way Back Machine at the Internet Archive!
  • An important note about the texts. Some texts may contain offensive language or negative cultural or gender stereotypes. Such texts should be regarded in the context of the time period they were written as a reflection of common attitudes of the time or of characters within the text's narrative. Because these texts are part of the historical record, we include them on this website and reserve the right to redact them; however, vocal works that use such texts should not be performed without an explanation of their historical contexts.

About the Translations

  • Language of translations. The languages of available translations of a song text are identified by three-letter language codes with a blue background, e.g., ENG or GER. The abbreviations can be found here.
  • Translation style. Many of the translations are close to literal and meant primarily as an aid for understanding the original language, while others attempt to capture some of the original's rhythm or rhyme. Different types of translations are useful in different situations, and a second opinion is often quite useful, so we are always happy to offer more than one translation to the same language.
  • Translation copyrights. If you wish to reprint a copyright-protected translation for any reason, you must obtain permission first. Please read the instructions below the translation.
  • Giving proper credit to authors. You must always give proper credit when copying and distributing copyright-protected material. This means including the copyright symbol, ©, and indicating the source of the translation. Here is an example:

    Translation copyright © by Jane Doe, reprinted with permission from The LiederNet Archive