Franz’s treatment of the words is individual. Few song writers have ever set their texts with more conscientious regard for the niceties of metre and accent. Yet it is musical design and not verbal peculiarities which determines his melodic line. The melody is always and beyond all a melody. The perfect marriage of words and music in Franz comes from his selection of melodies which would nicely fit the words in hand. Neither is strained; neither is sacrificed to the other. In this respect Franz is surpassed by no song writer who ever lived. Now and then the melody is so handled as to seem like very reserved declamation, but even these instances are rare. Franz was not a purist in the setting of his texts; he did hold strictly to the ‘one syllable one note’ principle. Not infrequently he uses the slurred phrase on a single vowel. But we can never feel that this was done out of a careless disregard for the integrity of the text. In his accompaniment Franz is even greater than in his treatment of the voice. It is here that his extreme artistry becomes most evident. The accompaniment is always rich, always a thing of value in itself. Usually it would make a perfectly satisfactory musical composition alone. It is so well filled with musical beauties that with a little more emphasis it might overpower the voice part. But always it is kept nicely in its proper function. In no other song writer are the voice and piano parts so perfectly fused. In Franz’s accompaniments is shown his great musical resourcefulness. No two are alike. Nearly all the recognized means are used--solid chords, broken chords, melodic figurations over a spread bass, four-part chorales with free passing notes, contrapuntal melodies against the voice, suggestive devices innumerable. But in every case the germ principle is simple and is strictly adhered to throughout. Franz’s accompaniments are, as a whole, more polyphonic than those of any other song writer. In the greater part of his songs the inner notes do not serve merely for harmonic filling-in; they are parts of individual voices which are preserved in their integrity. In all these songs there is nothing ambitious or spectacular. But so deeply based is his musicianship that we may say that anyone who knows the Franz songs accurately knows in epitome the whole development of German classical music. Moreover, they are the finest of cultural exercises. For one who has learned to love the Franz songs has learned one of the most precious things music has to give--the art of _listening_.