ABSTRACT
This chapter presents three Italian Songs for a Bass Voice, published by Tobias Haslinger on 12 September 1827. The songs are: Lincanto degli occhi; Il traditor deluso and Il modo di prender moglie. Luigi Lablache was the principal bass in Barbaia's Italian company at the Karntnertor Theatre, and one of the most famous singers of his generation. In April 1827 he sang the bass solos in Mozart's Requiem given at the memorial service for Beethoven. The texts are drawn from the three principal types of Italian dramatic music: opera seria, oratorio and opera buffa. Lablache may have had a hand in selecting them. Under the Italian words, Schubert appended a German translation probably made by his friend, Jakob Nikolaus Craigher. In its review of the songs, the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung noted that, although it was designated a single work, Haslinger had published the songs separately.
