Before his early death at age thirty-one, Franz Schubert wrote more than six hundred lieder, or German art songs, and utterly transformed a relatively modest genre into a vehicle of great emotional power. He had an unsurpassed ability to generate intense musical drama in the space of a few minutes, such as a young woman's turbulent sexual awakening in "Gretchen am Spinnrade" or the harrowing demonic menace of "Erlkonig." Mark Ringer guides the listener through more than a hundred of Schubert's greatest lieder, twenty of which are on the accompanying Naxos CD. He reveals them as miniature theatrical works, with as much psychological depth as any opera. He examines the songs closely for their rich fusion of music and poetry, their challenges for performers, and their place in Schubert's own life. The book culminates in Schubert's enormously important song cycles-Die Schone Mullerin, Winterreise, and the posthumous Schwanengesang-with Ringer showing how the composer helped establish the genre as a quintessential romantic art form. Book jacket.