While some of these songs are secular -- the Trinklied (D. 148) is frankly inebriated, and the Ständchen (D. 920) is frankly seductive -- most of the songs on this disc are as sacred as anything Schubert ever composed. It's just that, pantheist as he was, Schubert's secular hymns have God in nature, the spirits in the water, the luminous night, and the almighty, serenaded with spiritual ardor as strongly as Bach hymned the Lord in his cantatas. Certainly conductor
Dietrich Knothe and the Radio Choir of Berlin bring as much spiritual ardor to their performances of Schubert's secular songs as the Vienna Boys Choir brings to Mozart's masses. Indeed, this is one of the most radiantly spiritual discs ever recorded, a hymn to God in Schubert's music as much as God in nature. The singers perform magnificently, with great beauty of tone and rapt expression.
Knothe conducts brilliantly, with complete control and numinous interpretations. Together, they make the most convincing case possible for Schubert as a religious composer of secular music.