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Jasper Rose had a life long love of German lieder ("art songs")
German lieder of this time period are generally set to the poems of eighteenth and nineteenth-century German poets such as Heine, and Goethe. Sometimes lieder has been written as a series of songs, all of which are related by a single topic that is developed musically.
By far, the most talented composer of lieder was Franz Schubert (1797–1828). He wrote over 600 of these songs for voice and piano. Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms, Hugo Wolf and Richard Strauss also composed lieder. Robert Kraft (former director of Lick Observatory and UCSC Astronomy professor) once paraphrased musicologist Sir Donald Tovey (1875-1940) on this topic: "Schubert wrote 600 songs before writing his great symphonies, and Brahms could have learn something from every one."
Jasper said when he quit smoking cigarettes and cigars circa 1971, his singing voice very significantly improved.
It is also very remarkable given Jasper's lifelong love of singing German lieder, that he never actually learned the German language.
Copyright © 2012-2020 Jack Daley |
Lieder
are songs that were written by German-speaking composers of classical
music in the 19th Century, and are written for a single singer with
piano accompaniment. In English they are often referred to as
"art songs." 
