Among the Schubert-Liszt transcriptions, the one which probably stands next to the “ErlkÖnig” in general popularity is the song “Hark! Hark! the Lark at Heaven’s Gate Sings!” the words being the well-known, charming little matin song by Shakespeare which Schubert has set to music with all his infallible insight into their exact emotional import, and all his masterly command of musical resources, reproducing in the melody and its harmonic background the effect intended in every line of the text, filling every subtlest shade of feeling to a nicety, realizing once again that ideal union, that perfect marriage of words and music, so difficult and so rare with most song-writers, but which was a distinguishing characteristic of Schubert’s work.

In his piano accompaniment Liszt has displayed even more than his usual skill in preserving all the intrinsic beauty and precise poetic significance of the original, besides giving to it an eminently pianistic form. The music is bright, buoyant, joyous as the summer morning, fresh as its breezes, light as its floating clouds, stirring our hearts with the revivifying call of a new day, breathing hope and happiness in every measure, while the airy rippling embellishments remind us of the exuberant song of the skylark, as he rises exultantly to meet the dawn, shaking the dew from his swift wings and pouring out the plenitude of his glad heart upon the awakening earth in a sparkling shower of music, like the bubbling overflow of some sky fountain of pure delight. The player and listener will do well to have in mind Shelley’s lines, describing the “clear, keen joyance” of that “scorner of the ground,” the English skylark.