Wolf’s two predominant technical qualities were truly in line with the development of German song, apart from any extraneous influence. These two influences were the significance given to the piano part and the closest accuracy in the treatment of the words. Wolf’s procedure with the words--his rigid adherence to the ‘one-syllable, one-note’ principle, his insistence that the voice part should agree with the special accents of meaning as well as with the ordinary accents of prosody--this might have been merely a meticulous fad with another composer. But with Wolf it truly represented his attitude toward the art-song, an attitude strongly contrasted with, say, that of Brahms. He carried it out not as a rule to be observed (he occasionally broke it himself), but as an expression of his artistic feeling. His melody, of course, is somewhat free, but its musical integrity is never disfigured to meet the demands of the text. It is genuinely lyrical, but so managed as to give more regard to details than in most composers’ songs. Wolf’s piano parts are an unending delight to the musical student. They are more ambitious, more complex, more exuberant than those of Franz, but no less perfect from the point of view of workmanship. Unlike Franz, again, they are very highly colored and filled with details which interpret particular nuances in the text. Especially are they interesting for doing in an emotional and dramatic way what Franz so often did in an intellectual way--developing his piano part from a simple musical germ. Franz’s accompaniments are charming in the highest degree, but rarely emotionally moving. Wolf’s speak with an emotional voice not surpassed in any songs of the nineteenth century.