My Journey with German Art Songs
Authors . Student life
My name is Hyunjin Yi, and I am from Seoul, South Korea. From a young age, I always cherished singing. With dreams of becoming an opera singer, I attended an arts-music middle school. Most of the songs I learned and sang there were Italian art songs from operas, all with romantic melodies and themes revolving around love. So, I may have been growing somewhat tired of singing the same old songs about love.
It was on that one day that everything changed when I stumbled upon Schubert’s ‘Erlkönig’, an art song based on Goethe’s poem. Its melodic hoofbeats and the lyrics of a child’s death were shocking. That night, I diligently translated the German lyrics with Google Translate and ran through the translated lyrics over and over again. I discovered a growing interest in studying the interpretation of song lyrics and musical analysis rather than simply singing them myself. This naturally led me to develop my interest in German art songs, which motivated me to study the German language. I found great joy in pronouncing and reading German poems by myself, leaving no room for boredom in learning German.
Consequently, I decided to major in German Studies and have always dreamt of doing an exchange semester in Germany. Now, I am here at LMU as an exchange student in the German Studies Department.
I chose LMU mainly because of the course on ‘19th-20th Century Art Songs’ offered by the German Studies Department. Through this course, I hope to learn about the methods of interpreting art songs and discover art songs that I was previously unaware of.
However, my decision to study abroad in Munich is not solely about the courses they offer; it’s also about freely exploring other regions within German-speaking countries. I plan to visit the areas where composers and poets of art songs were active in the next few months, and I look forward to delving into their lives. As a huge admirer of Schubert, known as the king of art songs, I am eager to trace their footsteps in the hometowns and active areas of Schubert and the poets who wrote the lyrics for his songs.
