Schubert, Franz, 1797-1828. An die Musik

Franz Schubert composed his lied "An die Musik" (German for "To Music") in March 1817 for solo voice and piano, with text from a poem by his friend Franz von Schober. In the Deutsch catalog of Schubert's works it is number D547. The original key is D major. It was published in 1827 as Opus 88, No. 4, by Thaddäus Weigl. Schubert dedicated the song to the Viennese piano virtuoso Albert Sowinsky on April 24, 1827, a decade after he composed it. A hymn to the art of music, it is one of the best-known songs by Schubert. Its greatness and popularity are generally attributed to its harmonic simplicity, sweeping melody, and a strong bass line that effectively underpins the vocal line. At the end of Gerald Moore's farewell concert in London's Royal Festival Hall in 1967, in which he accompanied Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Victoria de los Ángeles and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, he came out onto the stage alone and played his piano-solo arrangement of "An die Musik" as his parting gift. The poem was not included in the collected editions of Schober's poems, but there is a handwritten copy of it in Vienna. It resembles the second canto of Ernst Schulze's poem "Die bezauberte Rose" (The Enchanted Rose), a poem also known to Schubert as a possible basis for an opera; however, it was published in 1818, so it is unlikely that there was any connection between them for the composer.