In the last two chapters we have witnessed the growth of German song from its simple germ of popular feeling into an organism of highly developed power and beauty. The seed of Schubert and Schumann had fallen on good soil. To Mendelssohn we owe a number of songs, equal in elegant finish to the other compositions of that master of form, and some of them full of deepest sentiment; and the laurels of this triad could not but cause sleepless nights of emulous desire to the smaller fry of contemporary musicians. What I said before about the apparent simplicity of the poetical form of the song, applies to a great extent also to its musical treatment. In consequence the musical market was soon swamped with a never ceasing flow of lyrical effusion, and the typical shibboleth of “Sechs Lieder für eine Singstimme” on the Opus 1 of aspiring youths became a sign of horror to the German critic.

But this loud chorus of babbling mediocrity must not deafen us to the voices of the prophets of true genius. Amongst the disciples of Schumann, for instance, we count men like Kubinstein, Brahms, J. O. Grimm, and others, with full sounding names in the land of song. Still, it cannot be said that these composers have essentially advanced the form of the song in the abstract.