Ex. 10-3: Jägers Abendlied

Schubert's second setting of Goethe's poem "Jägers Abendlied" (Hunter's Evening Song), written in 1816 (D. 368). He had already set the same poem once before, in 1815 (D. 215).

Goethe's poem has four verses, but Schubert left out the third one — both times. In that verse, the hunter sounds less like a lonely lover and more like a womanizer, chasing one woman after another. Schubert kept only the quiet, lonely feeling of a man who misses the one he loves.

In 1816, Schubert sent the great poet Goethe an album of his Goethe songs, and made this one the very first song in it — even though it dropped a verse of Goethe's poem. Goethe never replied. He preferred plain, simple settings, like those of his friend Carl Friedrich Zelter, who had also set this poem.

These were Schubert's most productive years for song. In 1815 alone, at eighteen, he wrote about 150 songs — among them his famous "Erlkönig" (The Erlking).

From the album Schubert: Goethe Lieder by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Jörg Demus (1999)
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