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Natasha Ivanovna Manteca Van Spluut (lionex92) wrote in linguaphiles,
2012-10-22 15:25:00

Difference (if any) between 'Lied' and 'gesang' in German?

Hello all,

Can someone explain the difference between 'Lied' and 'Gesang' for 'song' in German? it seems to me there must be a subtle difference between the two and they probably don't quite mean the same thing. Thanking you in advance for your help.
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  • 8 comments

icanseenow

October 22 2012, 14:04:28 UTC 7 months ago

Lied is song while gesang is "the singing" or the vocal part of a song.

di_glossia

October 22 2012, 15:41:26 UTC 7 months ago

A Lied is a song; Gesang is the act of singing.

muckefuck

October 22 2012, 15:59:38 UTC 7 months ago Edited:  October 22 2012, 16:00:13 UTC

Gesang is, in origin, a collective noun. Like English "song", it can either be a mass-noun (e.g. Vogelgesang "birdsong") or a count-noun (e.g. Lobgesang "song of praise; paean" [pl. Lobgesänge]).

Lied is always a count-noun.

lied_ohne_worte

October 22 2012, 20:28:50 UTC 7 months ago Edited:  October 22 2012, 20:29:41 UTC

Basically, what the others said. It does get a little more complicated, though - in older language, "Gesang" was also sometimes used more or less synonymously with "Lied". A common title for a collection of musical compositions would be something like "12 Lieder und Gesänge für gemischten Chor", which means "12 songs and songs for mixed choir". There is really no way that I'm aware of to distinguish whether a work is one or the other, because there is really no difference. But nowadays, "Gesang" is not really used that way any more unless one quotes such old titles.

lionex92

October 25 2012, 09:26:52 UTC 7 months ago

I see. Thank you all very much for your replies.

imps85

October 26 2012, 06:42:40 UTC 7 months ago

About as subtle as getting hit with a brick. nahj seriosuly, they are both different.
Lied means song.
Gesang means Vocals.

lied_ohne_worte

October 26 2012, 09:54:18 UTC 7 months ago Edited:  October 26 2012, 09:56:03 UTC

Edit: Sorry for my tone in the original comment, I forgot that I had enabled general notifications for this entry and didn't read the notification properly, so I thought you were replying to my own comment and not the post itself. In today's language, you are of course completely correct.

imps85

October 26 2012, 10:35:37 UTC 7 months ago

No worries haven't read it . :)