In his book Poetry and Music in the German Lied, Jack Stein attempts to evaluate the fidelity of Schumann's music in the Dichterliebe to the poems he took from Heine's Lyrisches Intermezzo. Stein states that, although he certainly captured some nuances of Heine's work, Schumann often ignored the "caustic" and "ironic" components of the text which result in a "softening and sentimentality of Heine's sharp and pointed verses". Stein proceeds chronologically through the song cycle, pointing out the many songs he believes to be unfaithful and noting a few instances that he finds faithful to Heine's text. Throughout his argument, Stein focuses on the "word-tone relationship" of the score, on the fact that the form (strophic vs. composed) and tone of each song, and even of each stanza, reflect Heine's poetry. Discussing song number 6, Stein states that "the ridiculous rhymes... should have warned Schumann away from his frank, pompous, patriotic-religious treatment." Stein seems to admonish Schumann for ignoring what he thinks is a clear sign in the text and therefore for failing to capture the essence of that poem. Midway through the chapter, Stein points out two other weaknesses in Schumann's composition: that he ignores the importance of the form of Heine's poetry and that he omits and rearranges poems, breaking up closely related pairs of poems. Most of Stein's analysis seemed valid to me. and well supported. Much of the appeal of Heine's poetry from Lyrisches Intermezzo comes from its elements of irony and wit; although the cycle begins with a beautifully simple love poem, the text becomes, as Stein says, "more and more bizarre" as it unfolds. And after hearing Dichterliebe for the first time together with a...... middle of paper......I wished his music would see some kind of success. It is often forgotten that composers write music as a career and write it for the audiences of their time. They have a deep passion for music that drives their artistry, but, after all, they need to sell copies or have their music performed to put food on the table. Especially in the early Romantic period, a song cycle with a sharp, witty and ironic sound may not have been attractive to an audience expecting beautiful sentimental melodies. Schumann may have known that he was simplifying Heine's complex text into something less extreme, he was also composing music in a style with which he and his audience were familiar. Fortunately for the listener, this style is beautiful, and despite Jack Stein's criticisms, I'm sure he agrees that Dichterliebe is a song cycle that will be loved for centuries to come..