Ex. 5-3: An die Musik

Composed in March 1817 when Schubert was 20, to a poem by his friend Franz von Schober. Most of Schubert's 600+ songs were published only after his death at age 31. This was one of the few published in his lifetime — in 1827, a full decade after its composition.

Schober's poem thanks music for lifting the listener out of life's dark hours into a better world. The gentle, hymn-like melody makes the song feel almost like a prayer — but a prayer to music itself, not to God. This reflects a wider change in European culture at the time: as society grew less centered on the church, people began to look to art for the comfort and meaning they had once found in religion.

Gerald Moore was one of the 20th century's most recorded song accompanists. At his farewell concert at London's Royal Festival Hall in 1967, he returned to the stage alone and played his own arrangement of "An die Musik" as his parting gift.

Track 3 from the album But I Like to Sing... by Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton (2023)
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