her the
reading of his poetry acted as a balm to Wolf's unquiet spirit, or
whether he became conscious of his genius for the first time when he
expressed this poetry in music, I do not know; but he felt deep
gratitude towards it, and wished to show it by beginning the first
volume with that fine and rather Beethoven-like song, _Der Genesende an
die Hoffnung_ ("The Convalescent's Ode to Hope").

The fifty-one _Lieder_ of the _Goethe-Liederbuch_ (1888-89) were
composed in groups of _Lieder_: the _Wilhelm Meister Lieder_, the
_Divan (Suleika) Lieder_, etc. Wolf even tried to identify himself with
the poet's line of thought; and in this we often find him in rivalry
with Schubert. He avoided using the poems in which he thought Schubert
had exactly conveyed the poet's meaning, as in _Geheimes_ and _An
Schwager Kronos_; but he told Mueller that there were times when Schubert
did not understand Goethe at all, because he concerned himself with
translating their general lyrical thought rather than with showing the
real nature of Goethe's characters. The peculiar interest of Wolf's
_Lieder_ is that he gives each poetic figure its individual character.
The Harpist and Mignon are traced with marvellous insight and restraint;
and in some passages Wolf shows that he has re-discovered Goethe's art
of presenting a whole world of sadness in a single word. The serenity of
a great soul soars over the chaos of passions.

The _Spanisches-Liederbuch nach Heyse und Geibel_ (1889-90) had already
inspired Schumann, Brahms, Cornelius, and others. But none had tried to
give it its rough and sensual character. Mueller shows how Schumann,
especially, robbed the poems of their true nature. Not only did he
invest them with his own sentimentalism, but he calmly arranged poems of
the most marked individual character to be sung by four voices, which
makes them quite absurd; and, worse than this, he changed the words and
their sense when they stood in his way. Wolf, on the contrary, steeped
himself in this melancholy and voluptuous world, and would not let
anything draw him from it; and out of it he produced, as he himself
said proudly, some masterpieces. The ten religious songs that come at
the beginning of the collection suggest the delusions of mysticism, and
weep tears of blood; they are distressing to the ear and mind alike, for
they are the passionate expression of a faith that puts itself on the
rack. By the side of them one finds smiling visions