ABSTRACT
Having just published seven of the songs contained in the volume sent to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in 1816, Franz Schubert had a severely limited number to choose from for this set. As Schubert's only five-song set, the structure is unique. Overall it progresses from first love to a song about the undying love of an old man on the point of death. Schubert will have been aware of the listener's desire to find connections between songs contained in the same context, and this is why he always appears to have chosen items which make the task relatively easy. In the opening bars of the first song in this set, the four-note scalic units in the pianist's left hand will bind together the first three songs, while the upper notes in the pianist's right hand, a rising minor third followed by a falling second, will be significant in the last two songs.
