Well, dance forms are not popular because classical dances are out of populatiry as well. Orchestras suites still make sense and can be performed live as good as any other symphonic stuff. But lieder? Do people (not professional musicians) still perform lieders in home? Age of recorded music brough us completely diffrent kind of cameral, simple song and classical one, scored for piano and classical vocal is very, very obscured form which completely lost it's original purpose.

It's up there with opera vying for that unwanted crown. But that may just be my anti-vocal bias. The fugue is pretty obsolete but it remains a good excercise or test for composers as they are particularly tricky to plan out.

As for the original question, the only classical or, possibly more correctly, quasi-classical songs I like are Gershwin's.

Most of the classical forms I enjoy are obsolete so it doesn't make any diference to me which is the most "obsolete". It's partly the fact that they are obsolete that makes them so much more enjoyable, since if they were still being produced there's always the risk that someone might come up with a better version.

It should also be remembered that the process by which some musical forms became obsolete is not because they were no good but because of the need for new generations of composers to find alternative forms in a music market which had already been served by the efforts of past masters.

I'd have to mark Hugo Wolf as my favorite writer of lieder. But let me expand this just a bit to include art song in general

I absolutely lover Webern's songs. The American Ned Rorem is a great writer of songs, and vocal music in general. He's written a large number of songs set to the works of many of the greatest modern poets such as Theodore Roethke, Elizabeth Bishop, John Ashbery, Walt Whitman.

Im Abendrot - Strauss.

I love the recordings of Schubert's Winterreise and Schumann's Liederkreis with Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore on the piano.

I'm not changing my original answer, as I still think Schubert stands out as king of the Lieder, but I have spent a great deal of time listening to Mahler's Des Knaben Wunderhorn, as well as his 2nd symphony in the last while, and have to put "Urlicht" up very high on my list of favorite Lieder.

Oh, and while much of Schubert's Lieder sound beautiful with a tenor, I do prefer Fischer-Dieskau's baritone.

Ich grolle nicht!!! I have a soft spot for Schumann, particularly Dichterliebe with which I have a very strong personal connection.
Schubert is amazing as well. I adore Winterreise and I am working on Wohin? from Die schöne Müllerin right now for my college auditions.

Schumann - Ich Grolle Nicht and the second song in Frauenliebe und Leben
Brahms - Wie Melodien (forget the rest of the spelling) and Die Mainacht
R. Strauss - Zueignung

This is slightly embarassing - every song on that list was either on my listening list for music history at some point or I have accompanied it for vocal students at my school.

anything from faure. and die mainacht by brahms.

honestly, i dont think that the art song is dead. it's just very niche and has it's own small, but rabid following.

Oh, and while much of Schubert's Lieder sound beautiful with a tenor, I do prefer Fischer-Dieskau's baritone.

I absolutely love Fischer-Dieskau... to the point that I am seriously contemplating this rather pricey 21 disc boxed set:



But I most certainly could not go without this performance by the inimitable Fritz Wunderlich:



Schubert is... to my mind... the unquestionable god of song... but I'd be hard pressed to come up with a clear second... let alone third, etc... While I love Schumann, Strauss' Last Four Songs and any number of Mahler's songs might rank equally. And then there's any number of others: Wolfe, Mussorgsky, Zemlinsky, Szymanowski, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Grieg, etc... At present I am going through an obsession with French melodies: Faure, Hahn, Debussy, Chausson, Duparc, Ravel, Delage, etc... and i wouldn't underestimate their achievements.

As for the obsolescence of the lieder or "art song"... what absolute nonsense! Song is virtually the root of all music. The art song is far from dead. The 20th century saw great examples of the art song and such continue to be produced into the 21st century. One need only look at major examples from Ravel, Delage, Jaubert, Zemlinsky, Richard Strauss, Schoenberg, Martinu, Janacek, Hindemith, Franz Waxman, Kurt Weill, Ilse Weber, Delius, Bantock, Benjamin Britten, Samuel Barber, John Corigliano, Ned Rorem, Philip Glass, John Adams, Luciano Berio, Osvaldo Golijov, Sibelius, Rachmaninoff, Manuel de Falla, Stravinsky, Earl Kim, Poulenc, Michael Nyman, Charles Koechlin, William Bolcom, Anders Hillborg, Laci Boldemann, Hans Gefors, peter Lieberson, Charles Griffes, Lorenzo Paloma, etc... to name but a few... and this wholly ignores the composers who straddle the line between "serious" and popular music... such as Rodgers and Hart, Gerschwin, Ellington, etc...

...lieder? Do people (not professional musicians) still perform lieders in home? Age of recorded music brough us completely diffrent kind of cameral, simple song and classical one, scored for piano and classical vocal is very, very obscured form which completely lost it's original purpose.

What does it matter that the initial purpose of the lieder has changed? The initial purpose of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier (among other works) was largely pedagogical... the fact that it is now listened to purely for enjoyment in no way undermines its validity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sFV8phOT6g

I likes this one

Hi! I am new here, and am so glad to find this community! Despite my user name, my favorite has got to be Gretchen am Spinnerade. It is wonderful to sing...the raw emotion and the highs and lows are thrilling!

I also think that the art song genre (including lieder) has a lot of life left in it. I hope that it will never become obsolete, especially with a generation of young music students spending their days learning the repertoire.

I have favorites from different time periods, but this is one of my favorite modern ones:

Ned Rorem - Ferry Me Across the Water
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f41uiqlOy5Y

I love this!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BR8_n-B8qu0