In 2005, Hyperion Records’ Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs presented performances of all the composer’s lieder in a chronologically ordered collection.Footnote ¹ Assembled over 18 years, with Sir Thomas Allen, Elly Ameling, Dame Janet Baker, Ian Bostridge, Thomas Hampson and Dame Felicity Lott among its 60-plus singers, and arrayed over 37 compact discs, with three more holding contextualizing music by contemporaries, this massive recording project demonstrated Schubert’s unparalleled artistic achievement in the vocal realm.Footnote ² Now, a like-titled publication by its pianist, Graham Johnson, complements that audio monument. Sharing insights on the poetic content, intrinsic expression and performance practice of Schubert’s solo- and part-songs with piano – whose realization is readily audible on the Hyperion recordings – plus much more, this three-volume encyclopedia will be of immediate and tremendous value to singers and accompanists who desire to develop convincing interpretations of Schubert’s lieder. But Johnson’s monograph faces forward too, ready to inspire fresh viewpoints and elicit new discoveries. A synthesis of current knowledge, practical experience and personal perspective, Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs should become a standard reference on its subject.

As his Foreword recounts, Graham Johnson’s specialism started upon exposure to some of Schubert’s chamber music at the age of 10, expanded with formal studies at the Royal Academy of Music, intensified via participation in master classes of Peter Pears, and deepened through the mentoring of Gerald Moore,Footnote ³ whom he calls ‘the most famous of all accompanists’ (I, pp. ix).Footnote ⁴ At first Schubert seemed ‘less satisfying than Mozart and Beethoven, a bit of both, and yet neither’ (I, p. vii), but as Johnson’s grasp of the composer’s art grew through practical experience and personal fascination, commitment arose – ‘I came to realize that it was the initiate’s duty to be an activist’ (I, p. ix). An impression of activism distinguishes the present project, and indeed, Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs provides an admirably unapologetic example of contemporary musical advocacy in the service of a worthy artist and his œuvre. Few who dip in will remain untouched by the author’s enthusiasm, and those who immerse are sure to emerge Schubertians, if they are not already.

In addition to activism, a sense of empowerment emanates from Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs. Johnson observes that Otto Erich Deutsch’s Schubert: A Documentary Biography Footnote ⁵ ‘has long permitted ordinary people to put their own gloss on the bare facts of Schubertian events, so far as they are known’ (I, p. xi). Of course, that volume also has been a boon to musicologists, for by giving contextualized evidence, rather than constraining conclusions, Schubert: A Documentary Biography has enabled them to make associations, form hypotheses and develop explanations regarding the composer and his music – to be imaginative and creative. Though certainly different in nature, Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs also represents a repository of essential information and a source of cordial encouragement for expanding our understanding of the composer’s lieder – a potent stimulus for productivity.

Consisting of three thick, hardcover and signature-sewn volumes, borne by a sturdy slipcase, Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs weighs almost six kilograms and comprises nearly 3,000 pages – a magnum opus indeed! Superbly produced with the support of the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, the Marilyn Horne Foundation and the Annie Burr Lewis Fund at Yale University Press, the encyclopedia is made to last as well as assert the canonic status of Schubert’s lieder. Those acquainted with the handbook that accompanied Hyperion’s collectionFootnote ⁶ will find Richard Wigmore’s translations here too, along with information from its year-by-year ‘Schubert Calendars’. Similarly, those who appreciated Johnson’s liner notes in Hyperion’s 37 separate CD releases (whose texts could not be included within the boxed-set’s handbook, which already ran to 422 pages of tiny type!) will encounter familiar ideas and turns of phrase as well. However, this is a completely reconceived and remarkably comprehensive guide to the composer’s lieder that reveals the benefits of perspective and reflection, as well as considerable research and refinement. In fact – and especially for those who know The Schubert Song Companion of John Reed,Footnote ⁷ perhaps the best comprehensive reference in English on the composer’s songs till now – what may impress most about this new resource is the prodigious amount of detail it contains, correlates and communicates.Footnote ⁸ An overview is now in order.

Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs contains three kinds of entries, including articles on each of Schubert’s lieder, biographies of each of his poets, and essays on a variety of general topics. Alphabetical arrangement organizes the three volumes, though with respect to the song titles, Johnson explains that these are treated ‘without reference to their German definite articles – Der, Die and Das (occasionally found in their genitive or dative forms – Des, Der and Dem)’ (I, p. xxiv). So for example, the entries on ‘Der Musensohn’ (II, pp. 398–402) and ‘Der Sänger’ (II, pp. 698–703) appear under ‘M’ and ‘S’, respectively, while that of ‘Don Gayseros (I)’ (I, pp. 424–7) is found under ‘D’.Footnote ⁹ In addition, certain groups of related songs, like the seven based on texts from Walter Scott’s The Lady of the Lake, as well as those of the Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise cycles, Schwanengesang, and other sets, are discussed together, rather than alphabetically.Footnote ¹⁰ ‘See also’ references and others sorts of hints are ubiquitous throughout and characteristic of this encyclopedia, ever prompting readers to browse related songs, poets and topics. Over 700 images, including black and white renderings of paintings, portraits, lithographs, drawings, engravings, silhouettes, photographs, publications, autograph manuscripts and signatures, many with considerable historical interest, provide welcome illustration within all three types of entries. Finally, several appendices present catalogues, indexes and other addenda bearing valuable information. As one might expect, song entries predominate, so what do they hold?

Each of the 700-plus song articles in Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs features five parts: a definitive heading, a brief incipit, a text with translation, an engaging commentary and sundry data. A heading includes the song’s title (according to the Neue Schubert-Ausgabe) along with an English translation, the surname of its text’s poet, its opus number (if assigned), its Deutsch number (according to the catalogue’s 1978 revision), and its H number (which corresponds to its place in the chronological sequence of Hyperion Records’s Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs).Footnote ¹¹ The lied’s tonality (or tonalities if there are multiple primary keysFootnote ¹² ) and the date of the work’s composition (to the extent it is known) appear next. If multiple versions of the song exist, they are identified by tonality, date, tempo and length, and among these, the principal version (or versions) discussed in the subsequent commentary is specified. For instance, consulting the article on Schubert’s ‘Geistes-Gruss’, one reads in the heading that its title translates as ‘A spirit’s greeting’, that Goethe wrote its text, that it was published as Op. 92, no. 3, that it corresponds to D. 142 in the current Deutsch catalogue, and that there are two different recorded versions in the Hyperion collection, H59 and H59A (I, p. 675).Footnote ¹³ In addition, one learns that the lied exists in six versions, the first of which was composed in March of 1816 and began in E-flat major before ending in E-flat minor, while the last appeared in July of 1828 and moved from E major to G major; from this one may gather that a fascinating tonal and structural evolution occurred in the dozen years between the two (I, p. 675)!Footnote ¹⁴ A musical incipit of two to eight bars, representative of the principal version(s) under discussion and given on two staves, displays distinctive musical elements from the beginnings of the piano and vocal parts, including the key and time signatures, the initial tempo and dynamics, plus articulation markings, and specifies the song’s length in bars below the very end of the excerpt. So in the case of ‘Geistes-Gruss’, its incipit corresponds to the last version of the song, shows the signatures of four sharps and C metre, gives the expressive markings of Nicht zu langsam and pp, presents the piano’s three-bar tremolando opening followed by the first two bars of the vocal line with just piano octaves below, and tells that the piece extends 33 bars (I, p. 676). Given Schubert’s enormous vocal repertoire, plus the great variety of editions and transpositions one may encounter, the song article headings and incipits of Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs provide for precise identification, temporal situation and rich contextualization – all essential to genuine understanding – as well as a good memory jog.

A song’s text comes next within its article, printed with the punctuation and in the versification Schubert may have had at hand, paralleled by a sensitive translation by Richard Wigmore.Footnote ¹⁵ Changes made by the composer (apart from word repetition) appear within the printed stanzas, and such departures from the poet’s original wording are detailed in footnotes. While some of these alterations represent errors, perhaps ‘made in haste’ as Johnson suggests (I, p. xxv), others impose new shades of meaning and will be of particular interest to interpreters.Footnote ¹⁶ For instance, the nine lines of ‘Erster Verlust’, D. 226, fall into groups of four, three and two, respectively, and their English translation’s punctuation reveals implicit meaning within the German text (I, p. 532).Footnote ¹⁷ A note at the bottom of the page indicates that Goethe’s original has exclamation points after each of three instances of the word ‘Ach’ that Schubert chose not to retain.Footnote ¹⁸ Anyone wishing to gain a good grasp of this ‘single-page Schubertian masterpiece’ (I, p. 532)Footnote ¹⁹ surely will want to know all of that from the start, since these factors shape structure, phrasing and flow. And in ‘Der Wanderer’, D. 489, Schubert’s decision to substitute ‘O Land, wo bist du?’ for Georg Phillip Schmidt von Lübeck’s original line ‘Und alles hat, was mir gebricht?’ in the fourth stanza, as well as his choice to interpolate a second ‘dort’ in the final line, making it ‘Dort, wo du nicht bist, dort is das Glück’ – identified by Johnson’s footnotes and discussed within its article (III, pp. 538–43) – both disrupt the text’s original metric structure, swerving its meaning, yet these changes personalize his appropriation of Schmidt von Lübeck’s text and intensify his song’s expression. While other critics certainly discuss these issues elsewhere in the literature,Footnote ²⁰ Johnson’s highlighting here draws immediate attention to choices crucial to apprehending the composer’s expressive intentions. Schubert’s textual omissions – which range from single linesFootnote ²¹ to multiple strophesFootnote ²² – are indicated as well, and, of course, these can be telling too. Finally, in song articles addressed to certain longer strophic settings, cuts have been made within the reprinted texts for reasons of practicality, and the locations of these editorial omissions have been identified. Serious study of any lied begins with its text, and Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs makes this easy and rewarding.

Johnson’s song commentary headings give the full name and dates of the song’s poet, include the date of its poem’s creation (if known) as well as an indication of the setting’s relative position among those proceeding from that poet, plus a reference to his or her biographical essay elsewhere in Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs. What follows varies according to the lied and Graham Johnson’s discretion, but each discussion bears an impression of voice – a directness of expression, a personal tone that addresses the essence of the music and engages the reader’s imagination. Commentaries for the songs of Die schöne Müllerin (II, pp. 799–886 [=88 pages]), Winterreise (III, pp. 620–733 [=114 pages]) and Schwanengesang (III, pp. 3–73 [=71 pages]) impress as generously expansive disquisitions, full of discerning observations and intriguing details, which, nevertheless, do not pretend to be the last word on those immortal masterpieces. Yet even ‘Wandrers Nachtlied (II)’, D. 768, described by Johnson as ‘a conjunction of purest genius: one of the greatest poems in the world, and one of the greatest single pages of music – only fourteen bars long but perfect in every way, the ideal combination of simplicity and deep feeling’ (III p. 554), merits four and a half pages in Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs.Footnote ²³ Surveying this brief piece, Johnson first recounts the circumstances regarding Goethe’s creation of the poem, as well as its content, before turning to a discussion of expressive musical elements in Schubert’s setting, proffering an exegesis that is dramatic and even poetic in its own way, as this excerpt shows:

With explications like this among the diverse resources of his encyclopedia, Johnson portrays a model of Schubertian vocal performance practice that involves much more than mere mastery of a song’s pitches and pronunciation. Indeed, it presupposes a thorough understanding of a song’s text, as well as apprehension of its poet’s and composer’s personal aesthetics, prior to rehearsal. This ideal also presumes a composerly grasp of the song’s structure and prompts acquaintance with what others have said about the work. Finally, it prescribes that a singer of Schubert’s lieder also will be an actor, one whose voice, visage and body convey external visual and even spatial connotations, in addition to the interiority of the song’s central character(s). Awareness of context and attention to detail are essential to this philosophy of performance, which adds hermeneutical, historical, analytical, scholarly and dramatic dimensions to traditional vocal expectations. Finally, this approach invokes a level of thoughtfulness, plus dedicated pursuit of the composer’s intentions, not associated with many traditional conceptions of the Romantic aesthetic.Footnote ²⁴ Surely a performance of ‘Wandrers Nachtlied (II)’, prepared in this manner, could not fail to impress as authentic, confident and thoroughly convincing.

Various kinds of data appears toward the end of a song’s article, including information regarding its autograph, first edition, dedicatee(s), publication reviews, first known performance, performance reviews, subsequent editions, bibliographic references, later settings and arrangements and notable recordings. At the very end are two more song titles, corresponding to those appearing immediately before and immediately after the song article’s subject within Hyperion’s Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs, which provide general chronological orientation. Like the contents of the heading and commentary, these data offer context, but more importantly, a plethora of leads toward new ideas about Schubert’s music.

Biographical entries on Schubert’s 100-plus poets, each headed by his or her full name and dates, contain ‘a detailed list and descriptions of the printed editions (marked S1, S2 and so on) that Schubert used, probably used or might have used, including, where relevant, later editions with textual variants’ (I, p. xxix), a chronological list of Schubert’s settings of that poet with page references within the earlier-mentioned sources, and a biographical portrait. As one would expect, Goethe (I, pp. 730–44 [=15 pages]), Mayrhofer (II, pp. 315–25 [=11 pages]), Müller (II, pp. 389–98 [=10 pages]), Schiller (II, pp. 746–56 [=11 pages]) and Schober (II, pp. 788–98 [=11 pages]) warrant expansive attention, but even Thomas Percy (1729–1811), whose Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (1767) provided the basis for Schubert’s ‘Eine altschottische Ballade’ (D. 923; 1827 [translation by Johann Herder]), merits a page and a half of discussion (II, pp. 515–16). Perhaps as never before, the song commentaries and biographical sketches of Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs portray how music and poetry blend within the composer’s art and persuade that, for fullest comprehension and appreciation, Schubert’s lieder need to be considered as a species of literature.Footnote ²⁵

There are 33 essays on an assortment of general topics ranging from ‘Accompaniment and Accompanying’ (I, pp. 48–54) to ‘Orchestrations’ (II, pp. 481–5) to ‘Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre’ (III, 598–601).Footnote ²⁶ Pianists will want to start with the first of these, but those on ‘Ornamentation’ (II, pp. 488–96), ‘Pedalling’ (II, pp. 511–13) ‘Rubato’ (II, pp. 682–91) and ‘Transcriptions and Arrangements for Piano, Instruments and Voices: A Selective Survey’ (III, pp. 378–97) also offer much that will appeal. Their partners will be drawn to the essays on ‘Singers’ (III, pp. 181–213), ‘Tempo and Expression Markings’ (III, pp. 316–26) and ‘Tonality and Transposition’ (III, pp. 352–64), as well as ‘Ornamentation’. Particularly useful to musicologists and their students are the essays ‘Autographs, Albums and Collections’ (I, pp. 267–74), ‘Nachlass – The Diabelli Publishing Project, 1830–50’ (II, pp. 404–10), ‘Posthumous Songs’ (II, pp. 562–79) and ‘Scholars’ (II, pp. 886–907).

Finally, the back matter of Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs, which consists of catalogues, indexes and other reference resources, should interest no less than the rest. ‘According to Deutsch’ (III, pp. 778–809) coordinates sequentially ordered D numbers (as indicated in the 1978 Deutsch catalogue) with their song titles (plus parenthesized poet surnames) and dates (as known), as well as their corresponding H numbers, with references (volume and first page) to their song articles in the encyclopedia, enabling easy consultation. ‘A Schubert Song Calendar’ (III, pp. 811–62) discusses the composer’s song production year-by-year, coordinating biographical information with insights on creativity, closing each year’s account with a list of other significant works composed during the same span to provide additional context. The ‘Index of Schubert’s Poets and Translators’ (III, pp. 863–4) and ‘Index of Articles on Subjects Related to Schubert’s Songs’ (III, p. 865) direct readers to the volume and first page of these entries’ respective discussions; the last of these provides directions to the general topic essays, the groups of related songs not formally identified by Schubert as cycles and the resources within the encyclopedia’s end matter. ‘The Hyperion Schubert Edition’ (III, pp. 866–82) tells the recording project’s story in somewhat greater detail than the Hyperion collection handbook’s account, lists contributing singers, and provides photos of the original 37 individually issued CD covers. A selected ‘Bibliography’ (III, pp. 883–904) offers information regarding sources referred to within the song, poet and general articles. In addition, a ‘Discography of Recordings Referred To In The Song Articles’ (III, pp. 904–5) provides particulars on those releases, which include, in addition to the Hyperion and Fischer-Dieskau sets, certain albums of Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten that were ‘a major source of inspiration for the author of this work’ (I, p. xxviii). Finally, an informative ‘Illustrations Index’ (III, pp. 906–35), plus short list of errata from Volume One, concludes the supplemental section at the end of Volume Three.

With the wealth of information in Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs, it might seem ungrateful to expect more, but readers should be aware of certain absences. For instance, amongst the back matter, one finds no general index that lists all page references to a given song or poet that may be found within the three volumes. The brief indexes to the encyclopedia’s biographical sketches of poets and translators (III, pp. 863–4) and to its general subject articles (III, p. 865) only indicate the starting points of those particular encyclopedia entries. While this omission may result in profitable browsing, a proper general index would aid comprehensive searches.

Some readers also may miss more explicit literature references within Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs. For instance, the quote from Richard Stokes concerning ‘Wanderers Nachlied (II)’ (III, p. 556) that was referred to earlier in this review has no accompanying footnote or endnote that specifies just where to find those exact words in their original context. The song article’s own bibliography (III, p. 558) lists four sources, but Stokes’s work is not among them; the encyclopedia’s comprehensive bibliography references ‘Stokes 2005’ and specifies ‘Richard Stokes (trans.): The Book of Lieder. The Original Texts of over 1000 Songs (London: Faber and Faber, 2005)’ (see III, p. 902), but the curious still will have to hunt through that volume for the quotation’s location. Similarly, in the song article on ‘Mignon (Kennst du das Land?)’, whose text also was set by Beethoven, Liszt, Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Wolf, we read that ‘Leo Black points out that Schubert is the only major composer to register a drastic change of mood at the beginning of the third strophe’ (II, p. 348), yet the song article’s own bibliography on that same page lists no source from that author, and it is not immediately obvious which of several of Black’s writings represented in the encyclopedia’s comprehensive Bibliography (III, p. 884) supplied it.

Other sources are better signalled, however. For example, in the commentary on ‘Hektors Abschied’ (1815) we read that Brian Newbould hears an echo of the song’s introduction at the start of Schubert’s Fantasy in F minor (1828) for Piano four hands (I, p. 853), and in that song article’s bibliography we find ‘Newbould 1997, p. 47’ (I, p. 854), with a more detailed reference to that book, Newbould’s Schubert: The Music and the Man, in the encyclopedia’s comprehensive Bibliography (III, p. 898).Footnote ²⁷ Likewise, a reference to Newbould’s association of ‘Der Musensohn’ with the onset of Schubert’s illness in 1822 is clearly attributed in that song article’s bibliography (II, pp. 401–2).Footnote ²⁸ Nevertheless, many Schubert scholars may expect more precise acknowledgement and attribution of predecessors’ and colleagues’ work throughout, as well as more systematic development of their ideas. Perhaps practical factors played roles in these indexical and bibliographic decisions, but another choice may have been determinative.

Given how much historical and documentary data it holds, one might assume that Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs was meant primarily for musicologists. However, individuated by its commitment to activism and its spirit of empowerment – one might even say outreach – the encyclopedia seems directed at a much wider audience. Indeed, interpreters and students may well stand at the head of its intended readership, for in lieu of systematic argumentation and scholarly apparatus, a less formal and more didactic style characterizes this resource.

An instructive impulse may be perceived within many of Graham Johnson’s song commentaries, like that of ‘Wandrers Nachtlied (II)’ examined earlier in this review, which identify and interpret telling details essential to a song’s expression in a manner evocative of a coaching session or a private lesson. Score at hand, a reader’s inner hearing responds and imagination reciprocates by constructing a corresponding musical image, then by furthering the analysis and exploring implications. Often such discussions widen temporarily through a brief contribution from another ‘voice’, like the observation from Richard Stokes quoted in that previous discussion, which supports or elaborates a key point. In private tutorials, such examples, tangents and reminiscences are common, so they seem natural here. This conversational strategy can be most persuasive, given the author’s intimate understanding of the music and vibrant manner of expression.

Consider Johnson’s exposition of ‘An die Musik’:

Following discussion of the interlude and second strophe, readers learn that Rainer Maria Rilke thought the song’s text ‘ghastly’, while another writer found it suggestive:

With such compelling elucidation, plus some reception history, and with a good translation in hand, singers and accompanists can proceed toward a credible realization of the song.

Other contents within Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs seem to serve pedagogical purposes. For instance, there are practical overviews of Goethe’s Faust (I, pp. 546–51) and Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (III, pp. 598–601), both quite influential on Schubert and his contemporaries. In turn, characters from those novels who populate so many of the composer’s immortal songs, including Gretchen, Mignon and the Harper, are well delineated through corresponding song commentaries. Together, they provide context for Schubert’s creativity. In addition, there are numerous lists of related songs, including helpful inventories of: songs by anonymous or unknown authors (I, p. 219–20), songs from antiquity (I, pp. 223–4), songs on biblical themes (I, pp. 303–4), songs derived from English-language texts (I, 781–2), songs based on Italian texts (I, pp. 956–8), songs referenced in Schubert’s letters and diaries (II, pp. 161–70), songs by opus numbers (II, pp. 468–81), part-songs (II, 502–8), and religious songs placed in the context of Schubert’s liturgical works (II, pp. 639–45). Interesting sidelights and even some surprises await as well. For example, a general subject entry, ‘Friends and Family – A Calendar’ (I, pp. 597–611), surveys familiar and unfamiliar figures as they came into and left the composer’s life before assembling a detailed portrait of his kin. Profiles of Schubert’s settings of Psalms 23 and 92 (II, pp. 593–99) offer glimpses of his attitudes toward sacred music within the context of his lieder.Footnote ³¹ And ‘Publishers’ (II, pp. 599–612) offers an intriguing perspective on the composer’s professional life.

Of course, gentle wit and good humour are never very far away. Schubert’s drinking songs – there are six bearing the name ‘Trinklied’, as well as ‘Winterlied (Trinklied im Winter)’ and ‘Zum Punsche’ [‘In praise of punch’] – provide opportunity for pleasantry. But levity even may arise in connection with the most sensitive of songs. For instance, of ‘Dass sie hier gewesen’ (‘That she has been here’), D. 775, whose text speaks of scents signalling a beloved’s former presence, Johnson says, ‘To put this idea to music, Schubert starts in harmonic limbo with diminished sevenths decorated with accented passing notes whereby the emotions of sexual longing are squeezed and pressed like perfume atomizers … The straining eye or ear is relatively common in lieder, but here, uniquely in song, we have the sentient nostril … Not even in Winterreise do we encounter such deep expression conjured by such slender and economical means. Singers who sniff at it should be encouraged to inhale deeply’ (I, pp. 402–404). Light this last sentiment may be, but the preceding analysis renders it utterly sincere.

Finally, one encounters from time to time in Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs the sorts of stories and sage advice few can share. Consider this discussion from the song commentary for ‘Auf dem wasser zu singen’:

A good teacher knows that great art demands attention to small practical details – like shifting fingers in just the right place to smooth a cascade, and brightening a vowel on a sustained syllable to enhance a transition – as well as faithful adherence to a composer’s stylistic principles. The educational inclination of Franz-Schubert: The Complete Songs seems most evident in passages like this.

Graham Johnson holds that a pivot point occurred in October 1814, and after ‘Gretchen am Spinnrade’, German song had profoundly changed.Footnote ³² With the emergence of ‘Erlkönig’ a year later, the nineteenth century’s dominant musical aesthetic began to coalesce. Insight regarding what would happen during subsequent decades lies within the lieder of Franz Schubert, for these songs vectored innovation and inspiration throughout Europe, often unobtrusively yet most effectively, to composers of symphonies as well as songs. Johannes Brahms’ assertion, ‘There is no song of Schubert from which one cannot learn something’ captures a truth known by many nineteenth-century composers, and certainly many from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as well.Footnote ³³ The multi-volume monument profiled here offers illuminative entrée to this celebrated corpus, and honours the composer by embodying the esteem with which he is regarded today. Readers of Nineteenth-Century Music Review will want Franz Schubert: The Complete Songs nearby.