Schubert's early ballad-settings of gruesome pseudo-Gothic, proto-Romantic poems like Ludwig Hölty's "Die Nonne" is an acquired taste. Indeed, even so indefatigable a Schubertian as Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau describes Schubert's setting of Die Nonne (The Nun) (D. 208) as "a rather clumsy, typically Romantic ghost story (which) leaves us musically as well as texturally cold" (Schubert's Songs: A Biographical Study, p. 59.

Unfortunately, Fischer-Dieskau is only too just in his judgment. Hölty's 11-verse poem does tell a story which would warm the heart of only the most ardent man-hating feminist: a nun who betrays her vows for a smooth talking knight is later betrayed by her knight, has him murdered in revenge, and later "tears out his wicked heart" and "tramples it under foot." Although Schubert's music is fairly inventive in finding musical images for this horrific story and although his music is far less violent than Hölty's poem, it nevertheless comes as close to vulgar music as any piece by Schubert ever could.

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