Untitled - Onyx Classics

first published, with ‘Glückliche Fahrt’, in Schiller’s Musenalmanach for 1796. Both poems refer to avoyage that Goethe made in 1787 on his Italian Journey, when he crossed the sea from Naples to Sicily,and experienced a flat calm – perfectly caught by no fewer than 32 semibreve chords in Schubert’s greatsong – and frightening storms.Schubert’s interest in Schiller predates his first Goethe song by three years, and although Goethe wasto become his favourite poet, Schiller continued to fascinate the composer, who set him no fewer than44 times. His most famous Schiller song is, perhaps, Gruppe aus dem Tartarus, which he first tackledin March 1816, a whole year before the definitive second version that dates from September 1817. Thisis music of astonishing imaginative power. The Cocytus (the river derives its name from the Greek verb‘to weep and lament’) winds its way through barren rocks, and the upward chromaticism in Schubert’saccompaniment symbolises with wonderful realism the groans of the damned, as they ask one anotherif their suffering will ever end.© Richard Stokes, 2012