Lied (German pronunciation: [liːt]; plural lieder, [ˈliːdɐ]) is a German word literally meaning "song". It usually describes the setting of romantic German poems to music, especially during the nineteenth century, beginning with Carl Loewe, Heinrich Marschner, and Franz Schubert. Among English speakers, "lied" is often used interchangeably with "art song" to encompass works that the tradition has inspired in other languages. The poetry forming the basis for lieder often centers upon pastoral themes, or themes of romantic love.

Typically, lieder are arranged for a single singer and piano, the lied with orchestral accompaniment being a later development. Some of the most famous examples of lieder are Schubert's "Der Tod und das Mädchen" ("Death and the Maiden") and "Gretchen am Spinnrade". Sometimes lieder are gathered in a Liederkreis or "song cycle"—a series of songs (generally three or more) tied by a single narrative or theme, such as Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, or Schumann's Frauenliebe und -leben and Dichterliebe. Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann are most closely associated with this genre, mainly developed in the Romantic era.

Robert Schumann, sometimes known as Robert Alexander Schumann, (8 June 1810 – 29 July 1856) was a German composer, aesthete and influential music critic. He is regarded as one of the greatest and most representative composers of the Romantic era. Schumann left the study of law to return to music, intending to pursue a career as a virtuoso pianist. He had been assured by his teacher Friedrich Wieck that he could become the finest pianist in Europe, but a hand injury ended this dream. Schumann then focused his musical energies on composing.

Schumann's published compositions were written exclusively for the piano until 1840; he later composed works for piano and orchestra; many Lieder (songs for voice and piano); four symphonies; an opera; and other orchestral, choral, and chamber works. Works such as Kinderszenen, Album für die Jugend, Blumenstück and Albumblätter are among his most famous. His writings about music appeared mostly in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (New Journal for Music), a Leipzig-based publication which he jointly founded.

Adel Tawil (born August 15, 1978 in Berlin, Germany), is a German singer part of the popular German pop duo Ich + Ich, after being part earlier of the German boy band The Boyz.

Tawil was born in Germany. His father, Salah Tawil, is Egyptian and his mother, Fatima Tawil, is Tunisian. Tawil is the first born of three, having a younger brother, Hatem, and sister, Rascha.

In 2011 he married his long-time girlfriend Jasmin Weber in a private ceremony in Berlin

During the end of the 1990s, Tawil was part of the German boyband The Boyz. Since 2004, he and Annette Humpe formed the duo known as Ich + Ich. They have released three albums, Ich + Ich (2005), Vom Selben Stern (2007) and Gute Reise (2009).

In 2007, Tawil teamed up with rapper Azad and released the song "Ich Glaub an Dich", which is the opening theme for the German version of Prison Break. Tawil has made another solo appearance with Tobias Schenke for the song "Niemand hat Gesagt".

In 2007, Tawil held three spots in the Top Ten with two released singles and one album.

Franz Peter Schubert (German pronunciation: [ˈfʁants ˈʃuːbɛɐ̯t]; 31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828) was an Austrian composer.

Although he died at the age of 31, Schubert was a prolific composer, having written some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies (including the famous "Unfinished Symphony"), liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music. Appreciation of Schubert's music during his lifetime was limited, but interest in his work increased significantly in the decades following his death. Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Felix Mendelssohn, among others, discovered and championed his works in the 19th century. Today, Schubert is seen as one of the leading exponents of the early Romantic era in music and he remains one of the most frequently performed composers.

Schubert was born in Himmelpfortgrund (now a part of Alsergrund), Vienna, on 31 January 1797. His father, Franz Theodor Schubert, the son of a Moravian peasant, was a parish schoolmaster; his mother, Elisabeth Vietz, was the daughter of a Silesian master locksmith, and had also been a housemaid for a Viennese family prior to her marriage. Of Franz Theodor's fourteen children (one illegitimate child was born in 1783), nine died in infancy; five survived. Their father was a well-known teacher, and his school in Lichtental, a part of Vienna's 9th district, was well attended. He was not a musician of fame or with formal training, but he taught his son some elements of music.

Ian Bostridge CBE (born 25 December 1964) is an English tenor, well known for his performances as an opera singer and as a song recitalist.

Bostridge was born on 25 December 1964 to Leslie Bostridge and Lillian (née Clark). He studied at Dulwich College Preparatory School and Westminster School, where he was a Queen's Scholar. At Westminster he originally intended to work in theoretical physics. He developed a unified theory of gravity and electromagnetism, which he submitted to Roger Penrose, who at the time was a leading authority on the subject. However after a few years he became disillusioned with physics and decided to specialize in the arts. He then attended the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, where he achieved a First in modern history and received an M.Phil in the history and philosophy of science. He received his D.Phil from Oxford in 1990, on the significance of witchcraft in English public life from 1650 to 1750, and was a British Academy post-doctoral fellow at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, before embarking on a career as a singer. His book "Witchcraft and its Transformations 1650 to 1750" was published as an Oxford Historical Monograph in 1997. This has been an influential work in the study of the pre-Enlightenment, "achieving that rarest of feats in the scholarly world: taking a well-worn subject and ensuring that it will never be looked at in quite the same way again" (Noel Malcolm, TLS). In 1991 he won the National Federation of Music Societies Award and from 1992 received support from the Young Concert Artists Trust.