The German lied, or art song, is considered one of the most intimate of all musical genres-often focused on the poetic speaker's inner world and best suited for private and semi-private performance in the home or salon. Yet, problematically, any sense of inwardness in lieder depends on outward expression through performance. With this paradox at its heart, Intimacy, Performance, and the Lied in the Early Nineteenth Century explores the relationships between early nineteenth-century theories of the inward self, the performance practices surrounding inward lyric poetry and song, and the larger conventions determining the place of intimate poetry and song in the public concert hall. Jennifer Ronyak studies the cultural practices surrounding lieder performances in northern and central Germany in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, demonstrating how presentations of lieder during the formative years of the genre put pressure on their sense of interiority. She examines how musicians responded to public concern that outward expression would leave the interiority of the poet, the song, or the performer unguarded and susceptible to danger. Through this rich performative paradox Ronyak reveals how a song maintains its powerful intimacy even during its inherently public performance.
"As a musicologist who has studied rather extensively text-music relations in German Lieder, I have long been aware of some important voices in the field. Certain of their writings have provided eye-opening and ear-opening jolts to interdisciplinary studies, generally within the world of musical scholarship. . . . I may be accused of hyperbole, but I consider Jennifer Ronyak's Intimacy, Performance, and the Lied in the Early Nineteenth Century as having a similar jolt-providing nature. . . . Her rich interdisciplinary approach is indeed a model for others to follow."
Jrgen Thym,
"In privileging historical perspectives on subjectivity and performance, Ronyak's monograph offers a rare glimpse into the private, semiprivate, and public contexts that shaped nineteenth-century sociability and concert programming. . . . Ronyak's stimulating study will be welcomed by all who continue to explore the rich expressive potential of poetry and music in the nineteenth-century lied."
