New thematic catalogue of Schubert Lieder

I made a felicitous discovery late yesterday while scanning the Library’s new acquisitions shelf: Schubert Liedlexikon, prepared by Walther Dürr, Michael Kube, Uwe Schweikert, and Stefanie Steiner. It’s a wonderful new thematic catalogue of all of Schubert’s songs. Following Otto Erich Deutsch’s indexing of Schubert’s works, the book arranges the songs chronologically by date of composition. Each entry provides the title, Deutsch number, name of poet, a thematic incipit, the full text (with German translations of those few foreign-language texts Schubert set), and a brief discussion of the text and music. A brief closing note gives the vocal range of the piece (in the original key), its location in both the Neue Schubert-Ausgabe (the more recent Schubert collected works edition) and the 7-volume Peters edition, source of the original text, and a brief bibliography for further reading.

REF ML134 S38 A26 2012

In the appendix you’ll find brief bios of the poets with a list of their settings by Schubert. Three indices provide further access to people, both mythological (Achilles) and real (J. R. Zumsteeg), song titles, and authors of the entries.

Being a Bärenreiter publication, the type and presentation are immaculate and the music excerpts are compact but legibly reproduced. Highly recommended for students and lovers of Lied who read German!