Nacht und Träume (Night and Dreams) is a

lied In the Western classical music tradition, ( , ; , ; ) is a term for setting poetry to classical music. The term is used for any kind of song in contemporary German and Dutch, but among English and French speakers, is often used interchangea ...

for voice and

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

Franz Schubert Franz Peter Schubert (; ; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical period (music), Classical and early Romantic music, Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a List of compositions ...

, from a text by Matthäus von Collin, and published in 1825. In

Otto Erich Deutsch Otto Erich Deutsch (5 September 1883 – 23 November 1967) was an Austrian musicologist. He is known for compiling the first comprehensive catalogue of Franz Schubert's compositions, first published in 1951 in English, with a revised edition pu ...

's catalogue of Schubert's works, it is D. 827. The song, a meditation on night and dreams, is marked "Sehr langsam" (very slowly) and is in the key of B major (with a

modulation Signal modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform in electronics and telecommunication for the purpose of transmitting information. The process encodes information in form of the modulation or message ...

to the flattened

submediant In music, the submediant is the sixth degree () of a diatonic scale. The submediant ("lower mediant") is named thus because it is halfway between the tonic and the subdominant ("lower dominant") or because its position below the tonic is symm ...

, G major, in the middle). There is a single dynamic indication, "pianissimo" (very quietly), which does not change throughout the song. The piano plays

broken chord In Western music theory, a chord is a group of notes played together for their harmonic consonance or dissonance. The most basic type of chord is a triad, so called because it consists of three distinct notes: the root note along with interv ...

s in semiquavers for the song's duration in a manner similar to bar five (the bar in which the voice enters), for example: : A typical performance will last around three to four minutes. A version in the Spaun family collection has the different tempo marking "Langsam, Sempre legato" (Slow, Always legato). The original publication erroneously attributed the text to

Friedrich Schiller Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller (, short: ; 10 November 17599 May 1805) was a German playwright, poet, philosopher and historian. Schiller is considered by most Germans to be Germany's most important classical playwright. He was born i ...

. "Nacht und Träume" is one of several Schubert songs that

Max Reger Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger (19 March 187311 May 1916) was a German composer, pianist, organist, conductor, and academic teacher. He worked as a concert pianist, a musical director at the Paulinerkirche, Leipzig, Leipzig University Chu ...

arranged for voice and

orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * String instruments, such as the violin, viola, cello, ...

. The last seven bars of the original version feature in

Samuel Beckett Samuel Barclay Beckett (; 13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish writer of novels, plays, short stories, and poems. Writing in both English and French, his literary and theatrical work features bleak, impersonal, and Tragicomedy, tra ...

's television play of the same name (see Nacht und Träume (play)).

Song text

Heil’ge Nacht, du sinkest nieder; Nieder wallen auch die Träume Wie dein Mondlicht durch die Räume, Durch der Menschen stille Brust. Die belauschen sie mit Lust; Rufen, wenn der Tag erwacht: Kehre wieder, heil’ge Nacht! Holde Träume, kehret wieder!

External links

*
Sheet music for Nacht und Träume
*[http://www.das-lied.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=67%3Anacht-und-traeume-op-432-d-827&catid=34%3Afranz-schubert-1797-1828&Itemid=28&lang=en Musical adaptation of the Schubert Lied - free recording (mp3) and free score] {{DEFAULTSORT:Nacht und Traume Lieder composed by Franz Schubert 1820s songs