Theory Article 4

Sining Liu

2/26/2022

Franz Schubert’s Repeated Settings of the Same Song-Texts

It is considered by many that Schubert’s songs were born through a natural and

naïve process. However, out of more than 600 songs Schubert composed,

approximately two hundred are manifold settings of some original composition, often

with versions that with a few improvements in detail. This offers us the picture of

creative procedure with self-criticism and artistic responsibility with regard to the

work. Schubert analyzed the most diverse problems in song composition with great

and strict sense of artistic responsibility. For example, he composed six settings for

Goethe’s poem “Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt.”

It is very characteristic of Schubert that he tempts to write new settings for the

poems of Schiller and Goethe. The purpose of the article is to call attention to the

outstanding points of orientation for the repeated tonal settings of texts which at the

same time supply valuable explanation of the development of the Schubert lied.

Innumerable were the alterations to which Schubert subjected the first draft of one of

his songs. Often they amount to more than mere negligible retouchings, and they

completely change the physiognomy of the melody in question.