Die Botschaft des Wortes in der Musik

Die Botschaft des Wortes in der Musik (“The Message of the Word in Music”) is a unique work that illuminates the close connection between text and music through the centuries. Beginning in antiquity, Herbert Zeman guides the reader through medieval traditions such as Minnesang and Meistersang, through the Baroque music of Bach and Handel, to the Enlightenment with Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. His examination of the Biedermeier period and the transitions between eras is particularly fascinating. He astutely analyses the sacred vocal music of Schumann, Mendelssohn and Liszt as well as opera, operetta and lieder by Wagner, Richard Strauss and Johann Strauss up to the present day. An impressive panorama of cultural and ethical dimensions.

On the author:
Herbert Zeman, Professor of Modern German and Austrian Literature at the University of Vienna (emeritus 2008), has taught at the most important universities on all continents and his numerous publications have had a seminal influence on the development of the teaching and research he represents. He is particularly interested in German literature of the 17th and 18th centuries, especially the Goethe period in the narrower sense, Austrian literature in its overall development and the interaction between poetry and music.