Ex. 5-4: An die Musik

An die Musik (To Music) is a song Schubert wrote in March 1817, when he was 20. The poem is by his friend Franz von Schober, who was the same age, and Schubert was living in Schober's home at the time. Schubert wrote out the song again later, with small changes, and this second version was printed in Vienna in December 1827, ten years after he wrote it, in a set of four songs.

Franz von Schober (1796–1882) was born in Sweden, where his Austrian father ran a large farm. He wrote poems and the words for Schubert's opera Alfonso und Estrella. Later he worked at the court in Weimar, where he became a friend of Liszt. He lived until 1882, 54 years longer than Schubert.

In the poem, Schober thanks music. In many grey hours, when life was hard, music filled his heart with warm love and carried him away into a better world. Even one sigh from a harp, one sweet chord, opened heaven for him. The poem ends, "Lovely art, I thank you."

The only copy of the second version in Schubert's own hand once belonged to the writer Stefan Zweig. He bought it in 1940 and took it with him when he left Europe. It is now in the British Library in London.

On 20 February 1967 the pianist Gerald Moore, who had played for the great singers of his time for many years, gave his last concert in London, with three famous singers. At the end he came on stage alone and played his own version of this song for piano.
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Track 3 from the album But I Like to Sing... by Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton (2023)
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