Such a song as ‘Courage’ cannot be overpraised. The compressed energy of its movement is not that of animal life, but of moral effort. Human will-power is felt throughout it. The change from minor to major (Schubert to the bone) in the last lines makes the hearer’s blood surge to dizziness. It is one of the most difficult songs to sing. For its energy may so easily be taken for animal spirits. It is just the song to ‘run away’ with the singer. And when once the singer has lost mental control of it, it becomes pitiless toward him. The tonic arpeggio of the last line requires ultimate exactness of vocal control. And from beginning to end the least inaccuracy of intonation or accent will be evident to the audience like a black streak on a white shirt-front. _Nebensonnen_ (‘Satellites’) is of utmost simplicity. It is so unassuming that for a moment it seems all but trivial. Yet this is the tender modesty of great lyric expression. The song is a test of the singer’s taste. The least over-sentimentalization of it will make the judicious grieve. A thousand times better to make it too simple and too prosaic than too emotional. The last song, ‘The Organ Grinder,’ is written over a monotonous ‘drone bass,’ imitative of a primitive grind-organ. The melody is apparently as crude as the instrument that is supposed to have played it. But somewhere in it one hears--one knows not how--the deep strain of pathos which is one of Schubert’s miracles. The third cycle, ‘Swan Songs,’ is matter for amazement to every student of Schubert. For its composer, in the space of fifteen years since he first began writing in earnest, seems to have become a totally new man with a totally new musical technique. It is traditionally hard for a musician to change his technique once it is firmly ingrown. The greatest musicians only--Beethoven, Wagner, and a few others--have been able to do it. That Schubert could do it--in addition to the fact that he was thus willing further to endanger his chances of material success--proves the marvellous richness of his natural endowment. When one considers that these songs were written by a man who had just passed his thirtieth year one is ‘teased out of thought’ with the curiosity as to what he would have become in music had he lived. Some have answered--‘the greatest composer of all time.’ The speculation is fascinating, and it makes us love our Schubert the better. The fourteen ‘Swan Songs’ are written to seven texts by Rellstab, one by J. G. Seydl, and six by Heine. The last fact makes us pause. Rarely has there been so rich a lyric poet as Heine, probably never one who could so inspire song writers. His first book of lyrics had been published only shortly before Schubert’s death, and the composer had set six of them before his final illness. Of these six, five are enduring masterpieces. If only Schubert’s genius could have been mated to Heine’s through the succeeding ten years!