ABSTRACT

In the second set involving poems by Johann Mayrhofer, Franz Schubert focuses on the importance of nature for the poet. In the anthology of Mayrhofer's poems published in 1824, Erlafsee has six stanzas containing 36 lines. The song Schubert composed in 1817 consists of two stanzas containing 14 lines. This set suggests, however, that when Schubert compiled it early in 1822 he was acquainted with these four stanzas, for the last two have a direct bearing on why he chose to bring it to an end with Am Strome. The musical structure clarifies Schubert's division of the set into two related pairs. The first two songs involve thoughts and feelings which change. The third and fourth songs, on the other hand, begin and end in the same mood, and are therefore ternary in structure, their contrasting central sections being in a faster tempo than the ones that enclose it.