Ständchen, D 889 (Schubert)
The song in its original form is relatively short, and two further verses by Friedrich Reil [de] were added to Diabelli's second edition of 1832.
Although the German translation which Schubert used has been attributed to August Wilhelm Schlegel (apparently on the basis of various editions of Cymbeline bearing his name published in Vienna in 1825 and 1826), the text is not exactly the same as the one which Schubert set: and this particular adaptation of Shakespeare had already been published as early as 1810 as the work of Abraham Voß [de], and again – under the joint names of A. W. Schlegel and Johann Joachim Eschenburg – in a collective Shakespeare edition of 1811.
In German translations of Cymbeline, the short lyric which Schubert set to music is simply titled Lied (Song).
As others have pointed out,[1] and as H. H. Furness in his 'Variorum Edition' of Cymbeline makes abundantly clear, "This present song is the supreme crown of all aubades..."[2] The Schirmer edition of Liszt's transcription for solo piano clarifies the context with the title of Morgenständchen (morning serenade),[3] and the German title of Schubert's song would be more accurately rendered in English as Aubade.
[6] Sir George Grove relates Kreissle's anecdote verbatim,[7] although it has been called "pretty, but untrue",[8] "apocryphal",[9] and "legend".
[10][11] Herr Franz Doppler (of the musical firm of Spina) told me the following story in connection with the "Ständchen": "One Sunday, during the summer of 1826, Schubert, with several friends (Doppler amongst the number), was returning from Pötzleinsdorf [de] to the city, and, on strolling along through Währing, he saw his friend Tieze[12] sitting at a table in the garden of the "Zum Biersack".
"[14] Herr Doppler drew a few music lines on the back of a bill-of-fare, and in the midst of a genuine Sunday hubbub, with fiddlers, skittle players, and waiters running about in different directions with orders, Schubert wrote that lovely song.
[6]Maurice J. E. Brown, in his critical biography of Schubert, partially debunks the story, showing that the garden of the "Zum Biersack" in Währing was next door to that of the poet Franz von Schober, and that Schubert spent some time there in the summer of 1826 with the painter Moritz von Schwind, although not necessarily staying overnight more than once or twice.
[citation needed] The earliest surviving Schubert autograph manuscript (MS)[16][b] is in the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus.
The German translation that Schubert set has the same metre/rhythm as Shakespeare's lyric, which allows the music to be sung to the original English words.
"[19] On the other hand, while discussing the variorum readings of Shakespeare's play, Howard Furness refers to "the version which Schubert sets to peerless music",[20] and Sir George Grove describes how "that beautiful song, so perfectly fitting the words, and so skilful and happy in its accompaniment, came into perfect existence.
[23] "Ständchen" has been arranged for various instrumental combinations, including Franz Liszt's transcription for solo piano, published by Diabelli in 1838 as no.
