Schubert's influence was as amazing as it was fortunate, for the French had long been subservient to ideas diametrically opposed to his. The depth, the sincerity, the predominant note of melancholy, that mysterious element that makes the Schubert Lieder what they are, that element that may be felt, but not defined, was understood by the French, who occasionally succeeded, surprisingly enough, in performing the songs in a fashion truly overpowering. Nourrit's singing of the Erlkönig, for instance, made a never-to-be-forgotten impression on me.