Hyperion Records

Most singers prefer Beethoven's setting of this poem which is undoubtedly eloquent but also somewhat 'stagey' as Einstein puts it. Here there is no trace of self-indulgence, and there is an urgency which gives a completely different slant to the poem. The Schubert song lasts well under a minute but a wounded vulnerability is created by a single curved line of the songwriter's brush. A strong note of personal experience is sounded; even by 1815 Schubert knew something of unrequited love. There is a marked similarity between this song and musical ideas in the second movement of Schubert's unfinished piano sonata known as the 'Relique' (D840). The composer also liked the song enough to use its essence twelve years later as part of his last, and never finished, opera Der Graf von Gleichen.

from notes by Graham Johnson © 1988