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Rating: 
Summary: An indespensible resource for singers, pianists.
Review: offers english (poetic not literal) translations of many german lieder texts neglected in other resources such as "word by word translations of songs and arias." indespensible resource for singers, pianists, and others interested in lieder who do not speak german. includes the greater portion of texts set by Schubert, Wolf, Schumann, etc. also includes texts set by more modern or obscure composers, e.g. Peter Cornelius, Clara Schumann, etc. a book that needed to be written.
Rating:
Summary: An important anthology
Review: This book, compiled by one of the greatest lieder performers of our time, is an extensive anthology of lieder texts from mid-18th century (Haydn, Gluck) to the first half of the 20th (Shoeck, Hindemith), with the vast majority placed in the heart of Fisher-Dieskau expertise - the romantic lieder: over 150 of Schubert's songs, most of Schumann's, and then Loewe, Cornelius, Brahms and many more. Important cycles by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Wolff, Mahler etc. are given in their entirety. The translation, even though it does not preserve the rhyme, does preserve the line structure and serves its purpose to the fullest. English texts (W. Scott, W. Shakespeare etc.) used by composers in their German translation, are "back-translated" to English, rather than presented in their original form. The texts are alphabetically organised, and in addition to the poet's (or translator's) name, the names of (in most cases) all composers who wrote music to the text are given. There are 3 useful indices - one by author, one by composer and one general index. In the interesting introduction to the book, Fischer-Dieskau briefly sketches the history of the artistic song from his own very interesting point of view. And here one has to realise that this is indeed a personal anthology made by a great performer of the German Lied. Most of the texts, with very few exceptions, are originally in German, or used by the composers in their German translation. If the text is not in German, as in the case of Carpani's "In Questa Tomba Oscura", it is there since it is set to music by Beethoven, or Tchaikowski's setting for the Scottish ballad "Edward" is in the book probably just because he used the German translation... This book can not replace much needed books that are not available, such as the entire corpus of Schubert's song texts, in the way that Norton's anthology of English literature can not replace the complete writings of the authors that appear in the collection. The texts are not annotated, something that would be welcome in a more reference-type book. However, for whoever is interested in the German lied, this is an essential and extensive anthology, accompanied by very good translations and very well organised. PS - now someone should come up with a French equivalent...
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