Hyperion Records

As always, when Schubert is in this serene type of mood we are tempted to think of Mozart, and one need not go much further than the letter duet from Le Nozze di Figaro to find the influence here. There are one or two felicitous touches apart from the ease and inevitability of the melody: the chromatic introduction seems to be entirely suitable to depict the floating of the evening clouds, and the chirp of cricket song is painted not only by drier arpeggii in the accompaniment, but by a fanciful plunge from an F to a surprising B natural in the vocal line on the third appearance of the words 'zirpt im Kraute das Heimchen'. The second version from 1816 is entirely different in every respect.from notes by Graham Johnson © 1989