Canto degli spiriti sopra le acque

Abstract

The article examines the different versions of Schubert's Choral Lied on a text by Goethe Gesang der Geister uber den Wassern, focusing mainly on the final version for male octet and string ensemble. The investigation starts with a semantic-morphological analysis of the verbal text and then concentrates on the solutions Schubert experimented with in an attempt to produce a setting as close as possible to the spirit of Goethe’s text.