Hyperion Records

This little song is once again about a more chastened, deepened perception of life than the idealism of An Chloen. Marriage has not brought happiness and we are left here thinking only of paradise as an unattainable concept. John Reed calis the style of the music demotic, or popular, and if it this song reminds us of Die Zauberflöte it is because the spirit of Mozart hovers gently on Schubert's shoulder when he decides to ravish us with the simplest of vocal lines, inimitable and unanswerable; after all, he is perhaps the only Lieder master, other than Mozart, who is able to do so. The minor key makes no appearance in this piece, which is surprising for such a melancholy poem, but not surprising when we realise that Schubert always avoided the obvious means of expressing unhappiness through music. There is pathos here, but nothing exceeds the pastoral frame laid down by the conventions of the poetry.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 1990