ABSTRACT
Cappi and Diabelli brought out this set on the same day as the Harper's Songs Opus 12 and the two songs from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's West-ostlicher Divan Opus 14. 'Don't forget Josef von Gahy and the Rondo' may have been a reference to Gahy's surprise and delight at Schubert's gesture of friendship when they performed the revised version of the Rondo for the first time. Had this taken place in Josef von Spaun's presence, he would have understood the allusion when he received the autographed copy of the song. Friedrich von Schlegel's poem maintains that the pleasures we obtain through our senses do not satisfy the heart. The idea of being different yet united is therefore the essence of the poem. To make this the centrepiece of a progressive structure, Franz Schubert opens the set with a song in which the shepherd and horseman have nothing to unite them, and concludes with one in which a sense of unity is experienced even though the partner is absent.
