Schwanengesang
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Schwanengesang ("Swan song") is the title of a posthumous collection of songs by Franz Schubert. Unlike the earlier Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise, it uses poems by two poets, Ludwig Rellstab (1799 - 1860) and Heinrich Heine (1797 - 1856).
Schwanengesang has the number D 957 in the Deutsch catalogue.
The collection was named by its first publisher, presumably wishing to present it as Schubert's final musical testament to the world. The original idea was to compose two cycles, one for Rellstab's poems and the other for Heine's poems. After the composer's death his brother took the songs and tried to turn them into one cycle. However, unlike the previous two cycles, this posthumously combined cycle has no continuity between songs.
Franz Liszt later transcribed these songs for solo piano.
