Five Favorite Lieder / Art Songs / Melodies / Whatever for Voice & Piano

[Florestan]

Has it been done before?

My list is all Schubert, in no particular order

Heidenröslein
Ständchen D 957
Die Sterne
Die Taubenpost
Erlkönig

[amw]

not easy to choose individual songs as opposed to entire song cycles. I can name one favourite—Schumann, Stille Tränen, op. 35 no. 10—just because it has the same effect on me in or out of context, but will need to think for a while to come up with others.

[Mirror Image]

I love so many, but I'm not going to narrow it down to a "Top 5".

[Florestan]

not easy to choose individual songs as opposed to entire song cycles.

That's exactly the point: favorite individual songs. 

[Florestan]

I love so many, but I'm not going to narrow it down to a "Top 5".

Mind you: five favorite, not top five favorite. 

[Mirror Image]

Mind you: five favorite, not top five favorite. 

Still impossible.

[Florestan]

Still impossible.

Tough crowd. 

[Jo498]

Five almost random picks; I don't remember so many from Brahms and Mendelssohn, so it was comparably easy to pick favorites. For Schubert I could easily name 50, and for Schumann a few dozen.

Schubert: An die Musik D 547
Schubert: Ihr Bild from Schwanengesang
Schumann Der Spielmann, op. 40/4
Brahms: Von ewiger Liebe op.43/1
Mendelssohn: An die Entfernte op.71/6

Bonus favorite orchestral:
Mahler: Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen

[amw]

That's exactly the point: favorite individual songs. 

Yes, that's what makes it difficult. For a second choice I'd probably go with the 1883 version (S.270b) of Liszt's Sonetto 104 del Petrarca, although partly for nonmusical reasons, but apart from that there are so many individual songs that I like without them having a particular personal resonance that encourages me to choose them above others.

To fill out a list I might add:
Shostakovich - Preface to the Complete Edition of My Works and Thoughts About This Preface, Op. 123
Schubert - Auf dem Flusse, D. 911 no. 7
Mahler - Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht?

but these are fairly random choices, to stick to a one-per-composer guideline (& it doesn't help that one of my favourite song composers, György Kurtág, wrote almost nothing for voice and piano; similarly, with Mahler and Shostakovich, their orchestral songs are often better than their piano ones)

[Brahmsian]

Anything with the title "Song Without Words"

[Florestan]

the 1883 version (S.270b) of Liszt's Sonetto 104 del Petrarca

My five  favorite Liszt songs are only two: Angiolin dal biondo crin and O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst. 

Yes, I know, I'm a hopeless romantic bordering on sentimentality.

[Florestan]

Anything with the title "Song Without Words"

I am not aware of any "songs without words" for voice and piano, save a few vocalises here and there. 

[amw]

My five  favorite Liszt songs are only two: Angiolin dal biondo crin and O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst. 

Yes, I know, I'm a hopeless romantic bordering on sentimentality.

To be fair, this is also a hopelessly romantic song (text), just a... more realistic one. But obviously the only reason I know about it is because of the piano transcription in Années du Pèlerinage; the much later revision for low voice and piano simply happens to be more effective. (Rarely recorded compared to the earlier, more melodramatic one, though, since it doesn't give the singer much of a chance to show off.)

[ritter]

Let's see...in chronological order:

- Beethoven: An die ferne Geliebte (I know, I know, it's kind of a cycle, but really one long lied ).
- Schubert: Der Laiermann (from Winterreise).
- Duparc: L'Invitation au voyage.
- Fauré: Une Sainte en son auréole (from La Bonne chanson).
- Debussy: Le Tombeau des Naïades (from Trois chansons de Bilitis).

I second Jo498's honourable mention of Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen, and add Reynaldo Hahn's Paysage.

[VonStupp]

Samuel Barber: Sure On This Shining Night
Claude Debussy: Beau Soir
Ralph Vaughan Williams: The Roadside Fire
Claude Debussy: Mandoline
Samuel Barber: A Green Lowland of Pianos

Is this a daily-submission game? 

[ritter]

,,,
Claude Debussy: Mandoline

...

That's a great one (as are Fauré's and Hahn's settings of the same Verlaine poem).

[VonStupp]

That's a great one (as are Fauré's and Hahn's settings of the same Verlaine poem).

Yes, they all have seemed to have found inspiration in its rather atmospheric verse. I especially like how they treat the 'mandolin' opposite the voice.

VS

[Symphonic Addict]

By Schubert also:

An die Jungfrau Ave Maria
Ständchen

...

For now these.

I think this is not the thread for me. I just need more instrumental richness. 

[Mirror Image]

I think this is not the thread for me. I just need more instrumental richness. 

A voice and piano doesn't do anything for you? Even if it's the purest, most opulent musical creation you've ever heard? I think what is needed is musical richness. Even as much as I admit to not being particularly crazy about a cappella music, there still is some music here that is alluring to my ears.

[Mandryka]

Anon arr Fellows - Have you seen but a white lily grow? (Has to be Pears)
Britten - still falls the rain
Laurence Crane - Tour de France statistics
Schubert - wegweiser (winterreise)
Wolf - gesang weylas (has to be Flagstad)