Of the songs composed before the time of Schubert, mostly by otherwise undistinguished men, the greater part were in the simple form and style of the folk-song. A second element in pre-Schubertian song was the chorale. The _Geistliche Lieder_ (Spiritual Songs) of J. S. Bach were nothing but chorales for solo voice. And the spirit and harmonic character of the chorale, little cultivated in romantic song, are to be found in a good part of the song literature of the eighteenth century. A third element in eighteenth century song was the _da capo_ aria of the opera or oratorio. Many detached lyrics were written in this form, or even to resemble the more highly developed sonata form--as, for instance, Haydn’s charming ‘My Mother Bids Me Bind My Hair,’ which is otherwise as expressive and appropriate a lyric as one could ask for. The effect of such an artificial structure on the most intimate and delicate of art forms was in most cases deadly, and songs of this type were little more than oratorio arias out of place. It will be seen that each of these sorts of song has some structural form to distinguish it. The folk-song, which must be easy for untechnical persons to memorize, naturally is cast in the ‘strophic’ form--that is, one in which the melody is a group of balanced phrases (generally four, eight, or sixteen), used without change for all the stanzas of the song. The chorale or hymn tune is much the same, being derived from the folk-song and differing chiefly in its more solid harmonic accompaniment. And the _da capo_ aria is distinguished and defined by its formal peculiarity. Now it is evident that for free and detailed musical expression the melody must be allowed to take its form from the words and that none of these three traditional forms can be allowed to control the musical structure. And the _Lied_ of the nineteenth century is chiefly distinguished, at least as regards externals, by this freedom of form. Such a song, following no traditional structure, but answering to the peculiarities of the text throughout, is the _durchkomponiertes Lied_, or song that is ‘composed all the way through,’ which Schubert established once and for all as an art-type.