MISCELLANEOUS SONGS OF SCHUBERT
Sung by ANNE TRURSFIELD (Soprano)
Dass sie hior gewesen
Geheimes Schafera Klagelied
Himmelsfunken Der Blumonbrief
Versunken
THERE is nothing irreverent here in the use of this commonplace word ' miscellaneous ' ; it means only that the songs, all of them among mankind's treasures of music, are not taken from one or other of the groups or cycles through which a sort of connecting story runs. Each one is a separate thing. And in his choice of lyrics to set to music, Schubert often showed such a careless disregard for their poetic qualities, or lack of these, that the word is quite just.
Listeners are apt to complain, sometimes with justice, that it is difficult to hear the words of broadcast songs. They ought to be heard, of course ; a song should be a complete thing in which poetry and music are partners. But in the case of some of Schubert's songs it does not matter much whether tho words are heard or not; the tunes are of themselves so good to hear as to be more than worth while merely as tunes. And, as everybody knows, Schubert is one of the few great masters of music whose tunes are popular in the right sense of the word-that everybody knows and likes them.