Italienisches Liederbuch (Wolf)

Italienisches Liederbuch (English: Italian songbook) is a collection of 46 Lieder (songs for voice and piano) by Hugo Wolf, setting poems from Paul Heyse' Italienisches Liederbuch to music.

[1] The time lag between the two volumes was caused by Wolf's long-proposed opera, Der Corregidor (1895), which might have been inspired by his personal love triangle with his friend's wife Melanie Köchert.

[2] The 46 lyrics of the songs were taken from an anthology of Italian poems by Paul Heyse (1830–1914), translated into German and published with the title of Italienisches Liederbuch in 1860.

[3] Despite Heyse’s diverse poetic selections, Wolf preferred the rispetto, a short Italian verse usually consisting of eight lines of ten or eleven syllables each, as a result of which the songs are short.

They are usually performed alternating by a male and a female singer, as (for example) in the recording of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone), Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (soprano), and Gerald Moore (accompanist).

Wolf-Auch kleine Dinge-Italienisches Liederbuch n 1, performed by Èlia Farreras and Clara Santacana during the 2023 International Course for the Interpretation of Lied Wolfram Rieger in Barcelona