Wilhelm von Schütz was a Prussian nobleman (his title was Landrat) who dabbled in the theatre, and succeeded in writing a few pieces which were populär in their time. Lacrimas from which Delphine (and its male companion-piece Florio) were taken, was the first of his tragedies. Schubert (who no doubt came across these plays in a book, rather than in the theatre) would have thought of him as a Berlin writer, but Schütz moved to Dresden in 1833 and broadened his writing sympathies, penning articles and tracts on such diverse things as religion, industry and poetry. He was responsible for publishing the first German edition of Casanova's works. A somewhat grotesque sequel, for which the poet is not to blame, is that Joseph Goebbels wrote his doctoral thesis on the works of Schütz.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 1990