Ex. 11-3: Nacht und Träume

Nacht und Träume (Night and Dreams) is a song Schubert wrote in 1823, when he was 26, or perhaps at the end of 1822. At the end of 1822 he had become seriously ill, and in February 1823 he was too ill to leave the house. The song was printed in Vienna in 1825, together with Die junge Nonne (The Young Nun).

The poem is by Matthäus von Collin (1779–1824), a poet and playwright in Vienna. From 1815 he was one of the teachers of Napoleon's young son, who grew up at the Austrian court.

The poem is about night and the dreams that it brings. At night, sweet dreams come softly into people's hearts, like moonlight. The dreams make them happy, and when morning comes, they call to the night and the dreams to come back.

Schubert asked for the song to be played very slowly and very quietly, from beginning to end.

The writer Samuel Beckett, author of Waiting for Godot, loved this song. In 1982 he made a short play for German television with the same title. Nobody speaks in it. The only sound is a man's voice singing the last part of this song.

From the album Schubert: Lieder by Elly Ameling and Dalton Baldwin (1974)
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