Die Nachtigall, composed in about 1821, is a setting of an anonymous text, a circular poem in which we end where we began: ‘And I set out …’. For these words about the song of the nightingale arousing an erotic lament in the persona’s heart, the twelve-year-old Mendelssohn writes a song that is especially beautiful at those brief moments when the right-hand part soars above the singer’s plangent melody.
from notes by Susan Youens © 2009
