Serenading Under the Window with Schubert's Serenade (Ständchen)
The Backstory
Ständchen ("Leise flehen meine Lieder"), No. 4 of Schwanengesang, D. 957
Hello, I'm Franz Schubert, and I'd like to tell you the backstory of my Serenade (Ständchen). You'll learn how a poem by Ludwig Rellstab became this song, and how it ended up in a collection called Schwanengesang, a title I never chose myself. Because my fellow composers and I teach you on this site to recognize our pieces when you hear them, I invite you to take a turn in the Trainer .
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A Busy Man With Little Time
My last year, 1828, was a strange one, because my health was failing while the music kept coming. In that same stretch I wrote the Mass in E-flat, the String Quintet in C major and my last three piano sonatas. Next to those big works, a few minutes of voice and piano like Ständchen might look like a side dish. Yet it's the one people are most likely to hum, which still surprises me a little.One Good Evening in March
Before the year turned sad, I had one proud moment: on 26 March 1828 I gave the only public concert of my own works. I had spent most of my life writing for friends in living rooms, so a real hall felt like a big step. It went well, and it was a success both artistically and financially. I'll admit the second part pleased me almost as much as the first.A Critic Hands Me a Poem
The words of Ständchen come from Ludwig Rellstab, who was both a poet and a music critic. He wrote the poem sometime between 1821 and 1824, and it appeared in his Gedichte, Erstes Bändchen, published in Berlin in 1827. I set it to music in August 1828, which means a man who made his living judging music ended up supplying me with a text. I never heard that he complained about the result.Singing On Your Feet
The word Ständchen originally meant a song sung standing up. That fits the scene well: a lover is out in the night air, not settled in an armchair, and he doesn't know how this will end. People hear the title and expect something serene, but the mood is anxious and full of longing. Picture someone shifting from foot to foot under a dark window, and you have the right idea.Hope Doesn't Get the Last Word
Rellstab's poem has five stanzas, and I gave the last one its own music instead of repeating what came before. That final stretch is where the singer says the most, as if he has run out of patience for hints. Then the song closes in D minor, the key where it started, even after that bright turn toward D major. I left it that way on purpose, because the night is still dark and nobody has answered him.Number Four in a Long Line
Ständchen is the fourth of seven Rellstab songs that open the collection we now call Schwanengesang. Six songs on poems by Heine follow them, and then comes one more song, "Die Taubenpost," with words by Seidl. Scholars still argue about whether all of this counts as a true song cycle. The manuscript shows thirteen of the songs copied out one after another, which suggests I had some kind of group in mind.A Set Without a Name
In October 1828 I offered the Heine songs to a publisher in Leipzig as a separate set. So I wasn't thinking of one grand collection, at least not then. After I was gone, Haslinger put all the songs together and added "Die Taubenpost" as the fourteenth. Whether I ever meant that last song to belong with the others, nobody knows.The Sad Part, Told Briefly
I died in Vienna on 19 November 1828, at the age of 31. I was staying at the apartment of my brother Ferdinand, and the official cause was typhoid fever. That was only a few months after I had dated this song. I'd rather you remember the music than the date, so let's move on.A Swan Gets Its Song
Tobias Haslinger published the first edition in Vienna in 1829, a few months after my death. The name Schwanengesang was his idea, not mine, though I did give titles to the individual songs. A swan song traditionally means an artist's last work, so the name apparently presented the set as my final testament. I'll say this for Haslinger: it was a better advertisement than "Assorted Songs, Some Sad."Liszt Takes It Out for a Walk
Franz Liszt later turned the whole of Schwanengesang into music for solo piano, changing the order of the songs and reshaping the piano writing. His version of Ständchen is the best known of all the arrangements. It was popular from the start, and pianists have often played it as a concert piece or as an encore. Today the song has been arranged for many other instruments too, including the guitar, so it has more or less come home to the instrument it was imitating.---
I hope you enjoyed learning about the backstory of my Serenade (Ständchen) as much as I enjoyed telling it. Looking back, it still moves me that a song written in the last months of my life, full of longing and unanswered questions, has found its way to so many listeners. There is still more to discover about this piece, from the way Liszt reshaped it for solo piano to the many other instruments, guitar among them, that have taken up its melody. If you'd like to keep exploring, I invite you to click on the links provided and let the song lead you a little further. I'd be glad to have you along, and I hope the night in this serenade stays with you for a while.