ABSTRACT
This chapter presents Ingeborg von Bronsart's Wildenbruch Lieder to deserve the designation song cycle. The repertoire of nineteenth-century Lieder composed by women is a treasure-trove of hidden gems waiting to be rediscovered. Bronsart was a prolific song composer: between the years 1878 and 1891, she published no fewer than ten Liederhefte. The Wildenbruch Lieder provide a significant window into Bronsart's compositional style, while also allowing us to re-conceptualize the thorny issue of Romantic subjectivity and gender, thereby opening up valuable critical space in which to embrace the work of this undeservedly neglected composer. During Bronsart's lifetime, gender played a significant role in the critical reception and evaluation of all her music. In fact, the sole published review of the Wildenbruch Lieder exhibits the all too familiar tendency to damn the composer with faint praise.
