parlor-songs

Updated: July 26, 2025

Now, a very brief sketch of the history of solo singing will show that this special advantage of the human voice over instruments was, if not entirely overlooked, at least considered of secondary importance in practice, until Gluck and Schubert laid the foundations for a new style, in which the distinctively vocal side of singing has gradually become of greater importance than the instrumental side; as we see in the music-dramas of Wagner, and the Lieder, or parlor-songs, of Schumann, Franz, Liszt, and others.

Henry Theophilus Finck - Chopin and Other Musical Essays