Grove's dictionary of music and musicians

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118, 6), are strophio songs (tliat is, with the
same melody and harmony unchanged verse
after verse), in each of which the voice part is
only eight bars long, with a bar or two of introduction
or ritornel. The longest is Bertrand's
'
Adelwold und Emma ' (June 5, 1815), a ballad
the autograph of which contains fifty -five
pages. Others of almost equal length and of
about the same date are :—
' Minona,
'
' Die
Nonne, ' ' Amphiaraos, ' etc. Another is Schiller's
'Der Taucher,' which fills thirty -six pages of
close print. Schiller's ' Biirgschaft ' and the
Ossian-songs are all long, though not of the
same extent as 'Der Taucher.' These vast
ballads are extremely dramatic ; they contain
many changes of tempo and of signature,
dialogues, recitatives, and airs. The 'Eitter
Toggenburg ' ends with a strophic song in five
stanzas.
' Der Taucher ' contains a long pianoforte
passage of sixty bars, during the suspense
after the diver's last descent. 'Der Liedler'
contains a march. The Ballads mostly belong
to the early years, 1815, 1816. The last is
Mayrhofer's ' Einsamkeit,' the date of which
Schubert has fixed in his letter of August 2,
1818. There are long songs of later years, such
as Collin's 'Der Zwerg' of 1823; Schober's
'Viola' and ' Vergissmeinnicht ' of 1823, and
'Schiffers Scheidelied' of 1827, and Leitner's
'Der Winterabend' of 1828; but these are
essentially different from the ballads ; they are
lyrical, and evince comparatively few mechanical
changes.
It stands to reason that in 603 songs collected
from all the great German poets, from Klopstock
to Heine, there must be an infinite variety of
material, form, sentiment, and expression.
And one of the most obvious characteristics in
Schubert's setting of this immense collection is
the close way in which he adheres to the words. ^
Setting a song was no casual operation with
him, rapidly as it was often done ; but he
identified himself with the poem, and the
poet's mood for the time was his. Indeed he
complains of the influence which the gloom of
the ' Winterreise ' had had upon his spirits.
He does not, as is the manner of some songcomposers,
set the poet at naught by repeating
his words over and over again. This he rarely
does ; but he goes through his poem and confines
himself to enforcing the expression as music
alone can do to poetry. The music changes
with the words as a landscape does when sun and
cloud pass over it. And in this Schubert has
anticipated Wagner, since the words to which
he writes are as much the absolute basis of his
songs, as "Wagner's librettos are of his operas.
What this has brought him to in such cases
as the 'Erl King,' the 'Wanderer,' 'Schwager
1 It Is atraiige to And his practice in the Jfassea so different.
Tiiere—a critic lias pointed out—in every one of the six, words are
eitiier omitted or incorrectly jumbled toiiether (Mr, Prout, in
Concordia, 1875, p. 110a). Was tnis luecause he understood the Latin
words imperfecta'?
SCHUBERT 329
Kronos,' the 'Gruppe aus dem Tartarus,' the
Shakespeare songs of 'Sylvia' and 'Hark, hark,
the lark ! ' those of Ellen and the Huntsman
in The Lady ' of the Lake,' even Englishmen
can judge ; but what he did in the German
literature generally may be gathered from the
striking passage already quoted from Vogl (pp.
288-9), and from Mayrhofer's confession
doubly remarkable when coming from a man of
such strong individuality—who somewhere says
that he did not understand the full force even
of his own poems until he had heard Schubert's
setting of them.
One of his great means of expression is modulation.
M'hat magic this alone can work may
be seen in the Trio of the Sonata in D. As in
his PF. works, so in the songs, he sometimes
carries it to an exaggerated degree. Thus in
the short song Liedesend ' ' of Mayrhofer (Sept.
1816), he begins in minor, and then goes
quickly through Eb into Cl> major. The signature
then changes, and we are at onceinD major
then C major. Then the signature again changes
to that of Ab, in which we remain for fifteen
bars. From A|> it is an easy transition to F
minor, but a very sudden one from that again
to A minor. Then for the breaking of the harp
we are forced into Db, and immediately, with
a further change of signature, into Fj. Then
for the King's song, with a fifth change of
signature, into B major ; and lastly, for the
concluding words,
Und immer naher sclireitet
Verganglichkeit und Grab
a sixth change, with eight bars in E minor, thus
ending the song a third higher than it began.
In Schiller's ' Der Pilgrim ' (1825), after two
strophes (four stanzas) of a chorale-like melody
in D major, we come, with the description of
the diffioultie? of the pilgrim's road—mountains,
torrents, ravines-—to a change into D minor,
followed by much extraneous modulation, reaching
Ab minor, and ending in F, in which key
the first melody is repeated. At the words
'naher bin ich nicht zum Ziel'—we have a
similar phrase and similar harmony (though in
a different key) to the well-known complaint in
the 'Wanderer,' 'Und immer fragtder Seufzer,
Wo ? ' The signature then changes, and the
song ends very impressively in B minor.
These two are quoted, the first as an instance
rather of exaggeration, the second of the
mechanical use of modulations to convey the
natural difficulties depicted in the poem. But
if we want examples of the extraordinary power
with which Schubert wields this great engine of
emotion, we would mention another song which
contains one of the best instances to be found
of propriety of modulation. I allude to Schubart's
short poem to Death, An den Tod, ' ' where
the gloomy subjects and images of the poet have
tempted the composer to a series of successive
y