(Ger.: ‘song-play’).
A kind of dramatic entertainment developed in Germany in the early 19th century in which songs are introduced into a play. It differs from the older Singspiel principally in its inclusion of songs that as lyric poems already enjoyed some currency; the melodies (normally with simple instrumentation) were new, though some of the songs from such works later came to be regarded as folksongs. Ensembles and choruses were not at first admitted, and the music had an almost entirely lyrical rather than a dramatic character. Despite statements to the contrary, the Liederspiel differs generically from the French vaudeville and the British ballad opera, in both of which the melodies were normally familiar airs specially provided with new words, whereas normally in the Liederspiel the words were pre-existing and the melodies new.
The first Liederspiel was Lieb' und Treue, by J.F. Reichardt, staged at the Berlin Royal Opera House on 31 March 1800 with text by the composer, using poems by Goethe, Herder and Salis, as well as folksongs. The somewhat enlarged second edition of the libretto (Berlin, 1800) contains 12 songs, including the Swiss folksong ‘Wenn ich ein Vöglein wär’, Goethe's ‘Heidenröslein’ and three other poems, and two each by Herder and Salis. An afterword by the author mentions that the songs are reproduced as they were set for the piano, without preludes and interludes; and that the complete score (suitable also for domestic performance) could be obtained from the composer at a cheap price.
Reichardt was the principal theoretician and apologist for the Liederspiel as well as being its best-known author and composer. The Leipzig Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung for 22 July 1801 contains his article about the Liederspiel, which he says was born of the desire to encourage simple, pleasant songs as opposed to brilliant and difficult operatic music. Lieb' und Treue was written for a domestic occasion; the idea came to Reichardt when he so often found himself invited to perform the song ‘Ach was ist die Liebe’ from his own Singspiel Die Geisterinsel (a version of The Tempest, first given at Berlin in 1798). As Lieb' und Treue drew from certain quarters criticism that its tone was too sentimental, Reichardt followed it with a comic and gay example, Juchhei (later known as Der Jubel) which included military songs. In the Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung article, Reichardt chided Himmel for the inappropriately heavy orchestration of his Liederspiel Frohsinn und Schwärmerey (libretto by C.A. Herklots, Berlin, 1801), though it enjoyed considerable popularity. Eberwein, Bergt and Lindpainter were among other successful exponents of the genre.
Mendelssohn's Die Heimkehr aus der Fremde and Schumann's Spanisches Liederspiel are examples of later works misleadingly entitled ‘Liederspiel’. Schletterer in his valuable study (1863) of the Singspiel is not strictly accurate in his statement that the Liederspiel led to the racy vaudeville developed in Germany and Austria by Angely and others.
J.F. Reichardt: ‘Etwas über das Liederspiel’, AMZ, ii (1799–1800), 709–17
J.F. Reichardt: Liederspiele (Tübingen, 1804)
J.F. Reichardt: Musik zu J.F. Reichardts Liederspielen (Strasbourg, 1804)
H.M. Schletterer: Das deutsche Singspiel von seinen ersten Anfängen bis auf die neueste Zeit (Augsburg, 1863/R)
L. Krauss: Das deutsche Liederspiel in den Jahren 1800–1830 (diss., U. of Halle, 1921)
R. Moering: ‘Johann Friedrich Reichardts Liederspiele’, Das deutsche Singspiel im 18. Jahrhundert: Amorbach 1979, 191–211
S. Johns: Das szenische Liederspiel zwischen 1800 und 1830: ein Beitrag zur Berliner Theatergeschichte (diss., U. of Tübingen, 1988)
PETER BRANSCOMBE