By the side of them one finds smiling visions of the Holy Family,
which recall Murillo. The thirty-four folk-songs are brilliant,
restless, whimsical, and wonderfully varied in form. Each represents a
different subject, a personality drawn with incisive strokes, and the
whole collection overflows with life. It is said that the
_Spanisches-Liederbuch_ is to Wolf's work what _Tristan_ is to Wagner's
work.
The _Italienisches-Liederbuch_ (1890-96) is quite different. The
character of the songs is very restrained, and Wolf's genius here
approached a classic clearness of form. He was always seeking to
simplify his musical language, and said that if he wrote anything more,
he wished it to be like Mozart's writings. These _Lieder_ contain
nothing that is not absolutely essential to their subject; so the
melodies are very short, and are dramatic rather than lyrical. Wolf gave
them an important place in his work: "I consider them," he wrote to
Kaufmann, "the most original and perfect of my compositions."
As for the _Michelangelo Gedichten_ (1897), they were interrupted by the
outbreak of his malady, and he had only time to write four, of which he
suppressed one.
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