Nikolaus, Freiherr von Krufft was born into a noble family of considerable means. He studied with Albrechtsberger who rivalled Salieri as a teacher of composition at the time. He confined himself to church music, a certain amount of chamber music, music for solo piano, and songs. He was a co-founder of the Wiener Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung and died at the age of thirty-eight. The reason for his early demise was given as overwork—according to his obituary he dedicated all his time, including his nights, to his Muses. It would not be hard to imagine that such an ambiguous explanation might also cover a case of the illness that ruined Schubert’s health. Krufft’s first collection of songs appeared in print in 1798 when he was nineteen. His poets include Schiller, Kotzebue, Matthisson, Voss, Hölty, Salis-Seewis and Goethe, as well as one of his female relatives.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 2006