Ex. 8-5: Frühlingsglaube

Frühlingsglaube (Faith in Spring) is a song Schubert first wrote in September 1820, when he was 23. He wrote it again more than once, and he finished the version used here in November 1822, at 25. It was printed in Vienna in 1823, together with two other songs. Schubert dedicated the set to the mother of his friend Franz von Bruchmann. Her house was one of the places where Schubert's friends met in the evenings to hear his music.

The poem is by Ludwig Uhland (1787–1862), a poet from Tübingen, in south-west Germany. He was also a lawyer, a scholar of old German poems and folk songs, and later a politician who worked for the rights of the people. He wrote this poem on 21 March 1812, the first day of spring, when he was 24. It is the only poem by Uhland that Schubert set to music.

The poem has two short verses. The soft winds of spring have woken, the air smells fresh, and the world grows more beautiful every day, until even the deepest valley is in flower. The poet tells his "poor heart" not to be afraid and to forget its pain, because "now everything, everything must change."

Many other composers wrote songs to the same poem, among them Felix Mendelssohn in 1830 and Josephine Lang in 1833.

In 1838 Liszt published twelve of Schubert's songs arranged for piano alone. This song is No. 7 of the set, and Auf dem Wasser zu singen (To Be Sung on the Water) is No. 2.

From the album Schubert's Four Seasons by Carolyn Sampson and Joseph Middleton (2025)
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