One of the perks in using the Bärenreiter Urtext edition of the Schubert songs is that the poetry set by Schubert is printed as Schubert himself would have encountered it. This may seem obvious, but the fact is that some sources, if they print the poetry separately at all, tamper with the intended layout for the purposes of saving space. Consider two versions of the opening verses of Leitner's poem "Des Fischers Liebesglück": Des Fischers Liebesglück Dort blinket Durch Weiden Und winket Ein Schimmer Blassstrahlig Vom Zimmer Der Holden mir zu. Es gaukelt Wie Irrlicht Und schaukelt Sich leise Sein Abglanz Im Kreise des schwankenden Sees. The layout is as Leitner intended. The charm li

Schubert set texts by no less than one hundred and eighteen poets, including one poem he wrote himself. Goethe (74), Schiller (44) and Mayrhofer (47) were his staples, and he returned to these poets time after time (Mayrhofer was for a period a close friend). Others played an important rôle for a time, and were then forgotten: Kosegarten, Matthisson and Hölty come to mind. Some were friends, like Bruchmann, Senn and (in the last years of his life) Eduard von Bauernfeld, who was the only one brave enough to visit the typhus-ridden Schubert on his deathbed. Having a poet friend is handy, but Schubert's thirst for new texts could lead him to make settings of artistically dubious works such as J

For the series of thirty five recitals in Jodoigne (Belgium) Michel Stas and I are very fortunate in having a variety of period instruments at our disposal, provided by local piano maker Claude Kelecom. To date we have used a copy of a Walter instrument (1807) and an instrument attributed to Johann Schantz, made some time in the early 1820's (Both are featured on our video page on this site: http://www.thegreatschubertjourney.com/#!videos/c1cy9 It is fascinating to enter into the sound world of Schubert, quite literally — these were the sonorities that he grew up with (it is worthwhile reminding ourselves that he would have found the sonority of a modern Steinway instrument quite strange.) W

Yesterday I roundly criticized the Peters edition for its failure to publish the complete Schubert songs, thus limiting performers choices. I should point out in fairness that Peters have recently brought out new critical editions of some of the songs, adopting an imaginative approach to the question of transpositions to lower keys. We know that Schubert sanctioned this practice, adding as a proviso that the accompaniment should be transposed up. (The vocal line is transposed down say a fourth, the accompaniment down a fifth but up an octave.) This avoids muddly textures on a modern piano, and of course on a period instrument, with its shorter keyboard, the pianist doesn't run out of notes!

Schubertreise is following the new Bärenreiter edition of the complete Schubert songs, which for the first time publishes all known versions and variants of the songs in an affordable and practical edition, available to high, medium and low voices. This may sound rather dull and scholarly from a listeners point of view, but the fact is that the Peters Edition, for many years the only edition available to the general public, selected songs with a view to making (or at least not losing) money. This meant that considerably less than the complete songs were published. Consider the case of Schubert's three settings of "Des Mädchens Klage", poem by Schiller. The first, D 6, (1811) is one of the ea