Ex. 5-4: An meine Zither

No. 4 of Emilie Zumsteeg's 6 Lieder (Op. 4), published by Schott in 1819. The poem is by Theodor Körner (1791–1813), a German Romantic poet who died young as a soldier in the Napoleonic Wars. The zither is a flat, many-stringed folk instrument. In the poem, the singer plays it alone at night and sings to it like a close friend, sharing his feelings.

Emilie Zumsteeg (1796–1857) was a composer, choir conductor, singer, pianist, and teacher in Stuttgart — one of the few women to build such a musical career in early-19th-century Germany. She wrote over 100 works, more than half of them songs; Op. 4 is an early publication from her twenties. Her father was the composer Johann Rudolf Zumsteeg, whose ballads were an important model for the young Schubert. He died when Emilie was five, but she grew up surrounded by music, as her mother ran a music shop.