THE LIBRARY | SONGS

It’s almost certainty no coincidence that the piano part to this ode to the moon is extremely similar to the opening movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata . Schubert idol-worshipped Beethoven and studied his scores carefully. The somber texture of the opening is abandoned briefly in a contrasting B-section in which the lamenting character imagines where his departed lover once resided. Although the music is demonstrably cheerier, the melody ends on the “wrong” interval of the harmony (the fifth instead of the usual 3rd or tonic) which gives it a sense of unresolved yearning before the original melody returns once more.