Poets

Little is known of the life of Friedrich Bertrand: according to recent information he was born in the vicinity of Halle, dying sometime after 1828, probably in Dessau. He was private secretary to the tax authorities, before becoming a freelance author and was later the councillor for Cöthen in the state of Magdeburg. Minona, D152 [2], to which Bertrand gave the subtitle Die Kunde der Dogge (The Mastiff’s Tidings), is a gloomy ballad in the style of the verse tales of Ossian (alias James MacPherson), which were immensely popular at the time and from which Schubert created nine, in some cases very extensive, settings until 1817. 

Schubert also set Bertrand's Adelwold und Emma to music (D211).

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