Schubert: Meeres Stille (Calm at Sea), Op. 3 No. 2 / D. 216

1. how you come across to it:
This is one lied included in the first CD of Graham Johnson's Complete Schubert Edition (Hyperion). I have been collecting CDs from this edition, and eventually, intend to listen to all of them.

2. why this piece?
I brought this CD along with me as I departed Boston for Washington, DC. Just now I played this amazing song on my laptop, enjoying it by myself in the hotel room.

3. (and...)

Profound calm reigns over the waters,
The sea lies motionless,
Anxiously the sailor beholds
The glassy surface all around.
No breeze from any quarter!
A fearful, deathly calm!
In the vast expanse
No wave stirs.
Goethe (1749-1832)

Music is an art defined by motion of sound across time. To represent this fearful, deathly stillness envisioned by Goethe with music must therefore be counted as one of the most difficult tasks with which the 18 year-old Schubert has challenged himself. The entire lied lasts only for a little more than two minutes; yet, it has this uncanny power of bringing the listener to a world ruled by an eternal but stifling presence. The piano accompanies the voice only with slow arpeggiated chords; yet, the chord sequence and its associated modulations magically recreate an atmosphere in which one feels a certain nervous energy quietly looming behind a peaceful and calm facade. By portraying, with music, such an abstract and subtle aspect of human experience, Schubert is pushing the impressionistic potential of music almost to its limit.