<<  -- 6 --  Roderic Dunnett    THE NORTHERN SCHUBERT

But it is the best songs, which have just been collected on the CPO label, which promise most to restore Loewe to his place in the front rank. As Simon Over emphasised, it is is not just the ballads -- Prinz Eugen, the uneven but ingenious Der Schatzgräber ('The Treasure-seeker'), or the wonderful The Lovers' Tomb ('Die Gruft der Liebenden') -- characterful though these are, which make him stand out. There is much else : Trommelständchen has a hint of Mahler in waiting; The Clock (equated with the singer's beating heart) or The Walking Bell (which blithely chases a truanting child back into church) are both wonderful conceits, in the music as much as the words. First Love has the delicacy and charm of Weber. Loving Burial gives one of those rare hints of Loewe edging towards the new refinement of Schumann. Kleiner Haushalt is bright and tripping, Will O-the-Wisps equally sprightly, though this time also spooky. The Pilgrim from St Just (marvellously sung by the bass, Kurt Moll) is a masterly evocation of gloom over a murky ostinato. A Girl's Desires almost bursts out into Franz Lehar. Szene aus Faust ('Ah, Lady of Sorrows'), sung by Brigitte Fassbaender, is one of the most astonishing songs of all, positively bursting into the major to evoke Goethe gazing out of the window, bedewing his flowers with tears. Not all may be up to Schubert; the delicious Elvershöh ('Elves' Hill') most certainly is.

So -- was the village schoolmaster's son from Handel's city of Halle (Loewe was born in the village of Löbejün in Sachsen-Anhalt), who was well known to the Berlin circle of Zelter and Reichardt (both familiars of Goethe himself), whom Weber himself trusted to prepare an orchestra for him, and who spent most of his mature years as music director at the Jacobskirche in Stettin -- modern Szczezin in Poland -- Loewe's heart lies buried in a pillar next to the organ there -- a real force to be reckoned with in 19th century Lieder-writing?

All the evidence is that he was. Much of our information about him comes from his congenial autobiography, first published posthumously in 1870 (and reprinted by the Handel-Haus museum, Halle). When the young composer made the obligatory pilgrimage, aged twenty two, to meet the ageing Goethe, his youthful settings of the great poet tucked under his arm, he found himself without a piano, and unable to sing. It would be criminal not to give Loewe his voice now.