Josephine Lang

Josephine Lang was a gifted German composer, admired in her lifetime for a melodic sensitivity and emotional directness in her Lieder that rivaled Robert Schumann and Brahms. Her songs are characterized by vocal lines that tend towards the expansivity and drama of opera as well as sophisticated piano parts that deepen the poetic meaning in the manner of Schumann. Lang prefigured the magical melancholy and dark harmonic shifts of Brahms in songs like O sehntest du dich and Mignons Klage. Herbstgefühl, one of her mature compositions, has attracted attention in the 21st century due to the harmonic invention of the piano prologue and the Wagnerian combination of soaring vocal lines over prolonged dissonances. Recordings of her songs have been made by Dana McKay, Heike Hallaschka, and Catriona Morison, who included several selections on the 2021 album The Dark Night Has Vanished.