The text of Hanflings Liebeswerbung (The Linnet's Wooing, D. 552), from April 1817, may have the dumbest one Schubert ever set. Each of the four verses of Johann Kind's poem begins and ends with the exclamation "Ahidi!" the German equivalent of "Chirp-chirp." And the rest of Kind's poem isn't much better: "Love me in return! I am in love!" indeed; that Kind was a practicing lawyer only makes his poem seem more improbably inane.

And that Schubert set this bird song it is even more improbable. Apparently, the song is based on one of his Deutscher, fast German dances in triple time that sound much like waltzes; Schubert grafted the vocal melody onto the piece. The result is an inconsequential waltz in A major whose only element of musical interest is the very brief modulation to B flat major in the center of each verse. But this is hardly enough to redeem a song that gives new meaning to the term "bird-brained."

© All Music Guide