Cocktail Party Fact: During the time when Franz Schubert, dying of syphillis, was editing the proofs of this gloomiest and most despairing of his major works, he wrote to a friend asking him to send the latest books by his favorite novelist, James Fenimore Cooper!

Commitment Factor: About 70 minutes.

Vital Statistics: Romantic Period. A song-cycle for voice and piano, based on poems by Wilhelm Muller.

What to Listen For: A nameless first-person narrator, a young man whose heart has just been broken, wanders out of doors in winter. Through his tears, he sees various things that remind him of his lost love: a river, a tree, her house. He finds shelter for the night and dreams of the springtime and his former happiness. The merry sound of a posthorn reminds him of his alienation. He starts to hallucinate. And at the very end, he meets a hurdy-gurdy man, an old beggar who staggers barefoot on the ice, ignored by everyone, cranking his music machine: a symbol of existential horror. Schubert’s settings of the 24 poems are mostly minor-key, or else major-key with modulations to the minor. Some, like Der Lindenbaum are very beautiful, in the traditional way we expect of Schubert. The last song, Der Leierman is an astonishing piece of work; once you’ve heard it, it will haunt you for the rest of your life.