2 - Tradition and Innovation in Schubert’s Lieder

Summary

On August 19, 1815, a dozen years before undertaking Winterreise, Franz Schubert composed a song that treads similar poetic ground. Like the winter wanderer of Wilhelm Müller’s cycle, the protagonist of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s “An den Mond” (D259; To the Moon) roams through a natural landscape evoking inner terrain; the moonlit wood and valley conjure the recesses of his (or her) mind, intimating a journey of self-discovery. The protagonist’s present solitude, recollection of joyful and troubled times, glancing reference to faithless love, direct address to a river, allusion to the harshness of winter, mention of his own song, and mysterious closing reference to wandering by night through the labyrinth of the heart all anticipate ways that Müller, in a darker mode, conveys existential isolation and suffering in Winterreise.