The Beethoven allusions in “Auf dem Strom”

This chapter examines some additional layers of meaning in "Auf dem Strom," first by summarizing existing scholarship on this composition and grounding those readings in recent theoretical writings about quotation, and secondly by describing an additional quotation that has hitherto gone unobserved. To understand the Beethoven allusions in "Auf dem Strom," we must first consider the circumstances of its composition. The song was written for a concert devoted entirely to Schubert's music and held on March 26, 1828, the first anniversary, to the day, of Beethoven's death. In homage to a composer seen to speak subjectively in his music, Schubert allows Beethoven to speak one last time from beyond the grave. Schubert ends his song with a vision of Beethoven finding in heavenly realms that which Schubert no doubt hoped to find there himself: the love that in life had eluded him.