ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses three songs to poems by Friedrich von Schiller: Hektors Abschied (Hector's Farewell), An Emma (To Emma), and Des Madchens Klage (The Maiden's Lament). This set concerns those who mourn. Taken by itself Opus 58 is about accepting the fact that the dead do not continue to love the living. Hector knows full well that his longings and thoughts will perish when he crosses the River Lethe. He is merely comforting Andromache when he tells her his love will not die. The prime concern of Opus 57 was to suggest that to be really effective the imagination has to work in harmony with reason, and this is the ultimate message. The outstanding musical feature of this set is the way Franz Schubert coordinates it and illustrates its argument by changing the function, and by implication the meaning, of a particular note.
