Review of Harald Krebs and Sharon Krebs, Josephine Lang: Her Life and Songs (Oxford University Press, 2007)

[1.1] "My songs are my diary."[1.2 ]"[Composing songs] is a rampant weed within me that cannot be exterminated..."[2] These two quotations from nineteenth-century German composer Josephine Lang (1815-1880) underscore her life. Lang's statement that her songs served as her diary drives Josephine Lang: Her Life and Songs by Harald Krebs and Sharon Krebs. The authors end their introduction with this thought; they organize the chapters by alternating sections of biography and contemporaneous songs, and they conclude the book with an extensive exploration of possible interpretations of the phrase. The second quotation is from a letter written around 1861 to poet Eduard Eyth, in which Lang compares composing to the admirable qualities of weeds: they spring up abundantly amidst adversity. These qualities were true for Lang, who persevered despite challenging circumstances, and for this book, a culmination of many studies by Harald and Sharon Krebs about Josephine Lang that displays a wealth of material in several formats.(1)[3] Ostensibly I am writing a book review, but in reality the Krebses have produced a book with very useful exterior sections, a CD of the authors' performances of thirty songs by Lang, and URLs for related websites that augment this material. Josephine Lang is well served by this abundance.[4] The seven numbered chapters of the book are preceded by a relatively short Introduction. The Introduction captures the thrill of the authors' chase for Lang's manuscripts, a chase spread over time and locations and compounded by the task of transcribing the documents. The Introduction summarizes existing scholarship about Lang and concludes with the reasserted voice of the Krebses as they use Lang's remark that her songs are her diary to lay out their format of interspersing sections on her life with her songs. The authors set a wide scope and warm tone for the book, with a unified voice expressed as "we."[5] Chapters 1 through 6 cover Lang's life, and Chapter 7 puts her life and work into perspective. The biographical chapters introduce her family's musical heritage in Munich, including several female musicians. Lang's meeting with Mendelssohn, which occurred as he passed through Munich during his Grand Tour in 1830, was fortuitous. Mendelssohn's high esteem for Lang-based on hearing her perform several of her songs-induced him to offer her professional assistance ranging from short-term lessons in harmony and counterpoint to long-term friendship and advice until his death in 1847; he helped her publish some of her songs, and he commended her to other musicians. Chapters 2 through 4 cover Lang's coming of age and her relationship with Christian Reinhold Kostlin, a complex man who died after their fourteen-year marriage and left her with six children. Chapters 5 and 6 depict Josephine's life after the demise of her husband until her own death. She faced great challenges during these years: money was scarce, two of her children died while three others moved away after marrying, and her own health was poor. Artistically, she sought strength to continue composing (ironically, her illnesses afforded her time to compose), and to find wider acceptance of her songs. Her friendships with Clara Schumann and, particularly, the conductor Ferdinand Hiller, helped to sustain her. Hiller, who knew Lang through Mendelssohn, published a biographical essay about Lang; although the essay took seven years to produce, it had the desired effect of increasing public interest in her music and stimulating financial assistance for her.[6] The Krebses's discussions of Lang's songs in these six chapters form an equal strand to the biographical sections, offering analyses sensitive to music and text.(2) The musical analysis shifts the focus among form, harmony, rhythm and meter (incorporating Harald Krebs's hallmark topics of hypermeter and metrical dissonance),(3) and range and register. …