Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig" , the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in...(+)
Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig" , the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in C major, a String Quintet,
the three last piano sonatas, the opera Fierrabras, the
incidental music to the play Rosamunde, and the song
cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise. He was
remarkably prolific, writing over 1,500 works in his
short career. His compositional style progressed
rapidly throughout his short life. The largest number
of his compositions are songs for solo voice and piano
(roughly 630). Schubert also composed a considerable
number of secular works for two or more voices, namely
part songs, choruses and cantatas. He completed eight
orchestral overtures and seven complete symphonies, in
addition to fragments of six others. While he composed
no concertos, he did write three concertante works for
violin and orchestra. Schubert wrote a large body of
music for solo piano, including eleven incontrovertibly
completed sonatas and at least eleven more in varying
states of completion, numerous miscellaneous works and
many short dances, in addition to producing a large set
of works for piano four hands. He also wrote over fifty
chamber works, including some fragmentary works.
Schubert's sacred output includes seven masses, one
oratorio and one requiem, among other mass movements
and numerous smaller compositions. He completed only
eleven of his twenty stage works.
The poem "An den Mond" (To the Moon), written by Goethe
for Charlotte von Stein who in turn wrote a version of
it which affected its final published version, is
rightly considered a high point of German literature.
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's recent autobiography
Nachklang takes its title and inspiration from the
poem's third verse. By the time the not yet
eighteen-year-old Schubert set the text, he was already
a Goethe veteran: this is the twenty-eighth of that
master's poems which he set to music. Composers like
Goethe's friends Kayser and Zelter had already
attempted it, as well as Reichardt. Challier's Lieder
catalogue lists thirty-two other settings before 1885,
and one must not forget Pfitzner's magnificent song of
1906. Capell outlined the main problem, as he saw it,
facing Schubert : "to catch the various shades of the
poet's feelings, in which exalted serenity exists side
by side with wild regret, was a hopeless task". Well,
not quite hopeless. Given that a strophic song has
certain limitations (and often these are the
limitations of the imagination, daring and subtlety of
the performing artists) this song is capable of
encompassing many moods—rapture, regret,
résignation, and the rueful smile in the major key
which is more eloquent and suggestive of deep emotion
than many a more obvious tear-jerking gesture. Because
each verse of music uses up two strophes of poetry,
only eight of the poem's nine verses can be sung (here
Goethe's fifth verse is omitted). The extended and more
durchkomponiert structure of the second setting, D296
(Volume 1), does not have this limitation, and indeed
the profundity and richness of this expansive and
daring song could encourage people to overlook the
first version, performed here. The undulating little
tune (and it need not be 'jaunty', which is the fault
Reed finds with it) has a simplicity and an
inevitability that can either be heard as perfection or
dullness, depending on the tuning and sympathy of the
ear. Once learnt, it haunts the listener, like a gleam
of moonlight lighting a corner of the unconscious.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Schubert)
Although originally composed for Voice and Piano, I
created this Interpretation of "An den Mond" (To the
Moon D.259) for Flute & Strings (2 Violins, Viola &
Cello).