It would be an error to underestimate the magnitude of Kodály's achievement in his art-songs by relating them too closely to the West European art-song instead of setting them against their national background. He was working almost from scratch: as he remarks in Folk Music of Hungary (p. 13), the country was not musically literate until the end of the 19th century. His songs lack the slow process of evolution which made the Lied: Schubert was the culmination of many centuries of reciprocal interplay between folk music and art music, between music and poetry. To create a Hungarian art-song within the lifetime of a single composer was an act of faith and astonishing audacity, and the true measure of the achievement will probably only come clear after decades, if not centuries.