Germany’s tradition of romantic partsongs effectively began on 24 January 1809 when Karl Friedrich Zelter, director of Berlin’s Singakademie, convened his first ‘Liedertafel’. The first gathering—of 25 poets, composers and singers—developed into a regular event, at which new and occasionally ancient partsongs were performed over dinner. Other singing societies (less exclusive than Zelter’s although generally still limited to men only) soon came to life, part of a wider cultural network that helped form and spread ideas of German national identity in the decades before and after the revolutionary year of 1848. Schubert was naturally drawn to what one scholar has described as the ‘gregarious music-making’ of partsongs. His Liebe, a setting for two tenors and two basses of verses from Friedrich Schiller’s affective hymn Der Triumph der Liebe, distills the essence of romantic love. Within a song of short span and wistful tranquility, the composer vividly intensifies ‘das Ach!’, the ‘alas’ of ‘mournful nightingales’. The work, complete with optional piano or guitar accompaniment, first appeared in one of three sets of Schubert male-voice partsongs published in 1823.

from notes by Andrew Stewart © 2009