Gesammelte Osterwald

Robert Franz and his music have had a long history of being rescued by admirers and well-wishers. There was a side of his nature that was quite content to wait rather passively for discovery and publication; he was certainly far from being his own best publicist. His own lack of "push" seems to have encouraged others, past and present, to step into the vacuum as his ambassadors and plenipotentiaries. His lieder came into print only as a result of the influential intervention of Robert Schumann; Felix Mendelssohn and Franz Liszt also played an important part in the launching of the music's renown. Franz repaid these three composers with dedications of books and songs; if there is something of the humble country cousin in his gratitude, he was to prove a more stubbornly independent provincial than these grander composers first imagined. He was always his own man and stuck to his last, particularly when it came to resisting well-meaning encouragement to write bigger works. The present release features a collection of Franz's songs and Lieder.