Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)Anyone who spends 5 minutes with this book can see that it is indispenseable. Every song is here, arranged alphabetically. Before borrowing the book from a library, I had the groundless fear that, while listening to, say, Winterreise, I would have to flip back and forth between the dispersed songs (and wear out the pause button on my player). But of course, the songs in each cycle are together, with simply the name of the cycle alphabetized.
Further on this stimulating subject, I will mention the one thing about this book that irks me. In contrast to the practice in English books, all of the songs beginning with "Der" ("The") are listed together, making a sort of subset of such songs. The same for "Die" and "Das". Since I don't know which of these three words should come before "Unterscheidung," for example, I would have to look up perhaps three places in order to find the song. Unless, of course, I had greater knowledge of German or could recall or check for the correct word (which happens to be "Die"). This is nitpicking, though, and the book sports an index of first lines. Lovely volume.
If it weren't so blasted difficult to purchase! The "beware" above has nothing to do with the book itself, but rather with this amazon page. If you click on "paperback" edition (the hardcover is currently not available), you are transported to a completely different book! I nearly purchased the other book (ISBN 0634026062) through the "staying up much too late" mists. This warning will become irrelevant soon, one hopes.
If you love Lieder, Schubert, or have a Godardian fascination with translation, grab this one (once you've found a way)!
Click Here to see more reviews about: Schubert: The Complete Song Texts
An astonishingly prolific composer, Schubert had written more than 600 songs when he died in 1828, aged 31. Most were settings of German poetry, including over 100 by Goethe, but some use Italian words and others are translations into German of English poetry and prose by Walter Scott, Shakespeare and others. The most famous songs have appeared in previously published volumes of texts, but more and more singers are now including the less familiar items in recordings and Lieder recitals. This book provides the texts and Richard Wigmore's prose translations of all the songs, and should be of value to singers with little or no German, and to music-lovers listening to the songs at concerts, on radio and on record.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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