Who could have guessed that Ludwig Kosegarten (1758 - 1818), a village priest from a Baltic island, would not turn out to be the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth-century German poet most highly esteemed by posterity? Who could have guessed that he and his poetry would live only because Schubert set in his songs? Certainly not Schubert: in July 1815, his enthusiasm for Kosegarten was so intense that he set 13 poems by him, far more than any other poet that month including Goethe (four) or Schiller (one). And if Kosegarten's verse seems mawkish and exceedingly sentimental, that certainly wasn't Schubert's impression.

Alles um Liebe (All for Love) (D. 241) from July 27, 1815, was the last of Schubert's Kosegarten settings for the month, and it is in many ways an ideal example of Schubert in a Kosegarten mood. First of all, of course, the poem itself is a romantic, some might say maudlin, example of Kosegarten's work: the poem's opening lines "What is it that fills the soul? Ah, it is love!" gives the game away. And these words inspire Schubert to a typical Kosegarten ecstatically rapturous strophic song. Lightly set in the heavenly key of E major with a supple and sensitive vocal melody gliding above delicately poised chords in the piano accompaniment, Alles um Liebe is one of the best of Schubert's July Kosegarten songs. But, apparently, Schubert had momentarily exhausted his enthusiasm for Kosegarten. He set no more Kosegarten poems until October.

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