‘Schwanengesang,’ The Final Songs Of Franz Schubert
Franz Schubert‘s final, painful days in November 1828 included bouts of delirium, requests for novels by James Fennimore Cooper, ceaseless singing and snatches of lucidity, when he actually worked on music.
Schubert had been seriously ill for about three years, but it’s impossible to tell in the quantity and consistency of his compositions. In just his final 14 weeks, he wrote his last three piano sonatas (among his most transcendent), the heart-melting C-Major String Quintet, Der Hirt auf dem Felsen (The Shepherd on the Rock) and the 14 songs that came to be grouped — by his publisher — under the titleSchwanengesang, a “Swansong” of sorts from a man who had written more than 600 songs in a truncated, 31-year life.
These final songs traverse myriad emotions. The lighthearted “Liebesbotschaft” (message of love), with its rippling accompaniment, addresses a murmuring brook with the hope of true love. The bone-chilling “Der Doppelgänger,” with its stark, slowly tolling chords, finds the protagonist crazed with a nocturnal vision of himself agonizing at the empty doorstep of his lost love.