Franz Schubert

Said to have been written in a single day amid the drudgery of teaching, this song is regarded as the point where the German lied began as a genre.

• From beginning to end, the piano accompaniment depicts the turning of a spinning wheel (an unbroken pattern of sixteenth notes) — translating Gretchen's anxious heart into sound.
• At the words "his kiss!" the accompaniment stops for a moment before resuming — a passage often singled out as the instant repressed feeling breaks through the body.
• The singer must shade the voice between girlish innocence and sensuality, and interpretations vary widely in emotional range.
• The structure, in which a single accompaniment pattern runs through the entire song, was radical for its time — the idea that the accompaniment itself is the character's psychology.

Written when he was eighteen, this song symbolizes the explosive productivity of 1815, a year in which he wrote some hundred and forty songs.

• The pianist's right hand rapidly repeats the same note from start to finish (an octave tremolo), evoking both the galloping horse and the child's terror.
• A single singer must distinguish the narrator, the father, the son, and the Erlking using only register and vocal color — a passage notorious among singers for its difficulty.
• The Erlking's seductive song is set in a bright major key, while the child's screams rise chromatically higher, so the mounting terror can be heard directly.
• At the final line, "the child was dead," the accompaniment suddenly stops — a moment often cited as a prime example of dramatic silence.

At a time when the Schubertiades were at their liveliest, he reshaped his own sunny song into a set of variations at the request of his patron Paumgartner.

• The theme of the fourth-movement variations is taken directly from the melody of the song "Die Forelle" — hearing the original first makes it easy to follow how the tune changes costume in each variation.
• The piano descends into the low register to support the bass in place of a cello, an effect arising from this work's distinctive scoring (piano, violin, viola, cello, and double bass).
• In the final variation of the fourth movement, the cello races up and down as if cutting through rushing water, a passage many hear as evoking a trout actually leaping.
• A bright, pastoral mood prevails throughout, and the work is often cited as evidence of the vitality of his healthy, illness-free youth.

Written just before the onset of syphilis and left with only two movements completed, the reason he set down his pen remains a mystery to this day.

• The first movement opens quietly with a low, dark melody in the cellos and double basses — this introductory theme foreshadows the unease that pervades the whole work.
• The lyrical second theme, played jointly by oboe and clarinet, is repeatedly interrupted by sudden fortissimo chords, alternating calm with anxiety.
• Why he stopped after the second movement remains debated — a rare case where the incompleteness itself has become part of the listening experience.
• The quietly fading close of the second movement feels as though the story vanishes into silence without ever reaching its end.

Written during a period overlapping with a hospital stay, the young miller's despair was not far removed from his own life on the sickbed.

• In the first song, 'Wandering,' the piano offers an unceasing accompaniment that flows like a brook — this brook's song functions as a character running through the entire cycle.
• The young man's hope appears in the bright major-key melodies of the early songs, while his despair shifts increasingly toward minor keys and slower tempos in the later ones — following this arc as you listen brings the story's contours into sharp relief.
• In the final song, 'The Brook's Lullaby,' the passage where the accompaniment settles into the gentle sway of a rocking cradle is read as a soft gesture of consolation toward death.
• This piece demands an extremely close rapport between singer and pianist, and the moments that sound like a dialogue between the two are counted among the work's central charms.

In a year darkened heavily by the shadow of illness, he revisited the melody of one of his earlier songs to write a piece that confronts death head-on.

• The second movement unfolds as five variations on the melody of his earlier song 'Death and the Maiden' — the original song's mood, in which death comforts the maiden, recurs in each variation with a different expression.
• The forceful chords that open the first movement ring out decisively, like a knock at the door, foreshadowing the shadow of death cast over the entire work.
• The fourth movement drives forward in the rhythm of a fast dance, the tarantella, and interpretations of this intensity diverge — some read it as a flight from death, others as death's own merciless charge.
• Because of the taut tension among the four instruments pitted against one another, it is considered one of the most demanding chamber works in terms of ensemble balance and rapport.

In the year he witnessed Beethoven's death, he completed the work that comes closest to his own inner life, having lost love, health, and stability all at once.

• From the first song, 'Good Night,' onward, the piano accompaniment maintains a steady rhythm evoking footsteps, depicting throughout the cycle the wanderer trudging through the snow.
• The tender melody of 'The Linden Tree' evokes the memory of past happiness, while the bleak harmonies of the songs that follow set that shattered memory against present reality.
• In the final song, 'The Organ-Grinder,' the creaking hurdy-gurdy sound the piano imitates is famous for expressing desolation at its most extreme.
• Because of the burden of performing all twenty-four songs in a single sitting, singers regard it as a work that tests both stamina and interpretive skill at once.

Completed two months before his death, this final chamber work sounds like a last farewell from a short life.

• Thanks to the unusual scoring for two cellos, the bass register resounds with unusual thickness and warmth, and the opening chords of the first movement foreshadow the work's characteristically deep resonance.
• Over the slow, static melody of the second movement, the middle section suddenly darkens as if a violent storm has broken out — this dramatic contrast is counted among the finest moments in all of chamber music.
• The vigorous rhythm of the third-movement scherzo and its sudden shift into a melancholy, slower trio are said to evoke the emotional turbulence of his final months of life.
• Because he died two months after completing it, many hear this work as though it were a final farewell to life itself.