Von allen deinen zarten Gaben—the poet has not yet been located—was composed on 18 September 1822 during a family trip to Switzerland; Mendelssohn would make three more trips there in later years. For this strophic song Mendelssohn only wrote out the words for the first stanza but clearly intended the remaining verses to be sung as well. In the absence of the complete original poem, Waldemar Weinheimer has supplied two more verses with which to hymn a May day, replete with love and music in the same sweet manner as stanza 1.
from notes by Susan Youens © 2010
