Schubert thought in song even when he wrote for the pianoforte, string quartet, or orchestra. The songs which he wrote in too great number were composed under all sorts of conditions, almost always hurriedly, in the fields, in the tavern, in bed. There were German songs before Schubert--folk songs, songs of the church, set songs for home and concert; but Schubert created a new lyric--the emotional song. Plod your weary way through the ballads of Zumsteeg, the songs of J. A. Hiller, Reichardt, Zelter, and the others: how cold, formal, precise they are! They are like unto the cameo brooches that adorn the simpering women in old tokens or keepsakes; as remote and out of fashion as the hair jewelry of the early 'sixties. Take away "The Violet," and what interest is there in Mozart's book of songs? There is Haydn's famous _Canzonet_; there is perhaps Beethoven's "In Questa Tomba" with a few of the songs addressed to the "_Ferne Geliebte_"; but Beethoven knew the voice best as an orchestral instrument. The modern song was invented by Franz Schubert.
The striking characteristics of Schubert's songs, spontaneity, haunting melody, a birthright mastery over modulation, a singular good fortune in finding the one inevitable phrase for the prevailing sentiment of the poem and in finding the fitting descriptive figure for salient detail, are also found in the best of his instrumental works.
There is the spontaneous simplicity, the simplicity praised by Walt Whitman: "The art of art, the glory of expression is simplicity. To speak with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals and the unimpeachableness of the sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside is the flawless triumph of art. The greatest poet swears to his art: 'I will not be meddlesome. I will not have in my writing any elegance or effect or originality to hang in the way between me and the rest like curtains. What I tell, I tell for precisely what it is. Let who may exalt or startle or fascinate or soothe, I will have purposes as health or heat or snow has, and be as regardless of observation. What I experience or portray shall go from my composition without a shred of my composition. You shall stand by my side and look in the mirror with me.'"