Although scholars debate precisely when Schubert composed his setting of Friedrich Ruckert's Dass sie hier gewesen (That She Was Here!) (D. 775), there can be little doubt that he must have composed it before his death in 1828. Yet the uncanny dissonances of the song—barely resolved eleventh chords that could have come from Wagner's Tristan or even Debussy's Chanson de Bilitis—the sinuous structure of the song—the verses of radically uneven length, the modulations to tonalities far beyond Schubert even at his most adventurous—and the synesthesic sensuousness of the song—is the fragrance of her perfume carried in the melody or the harmony, both, or neither?—make Dass sie heir gewesen one of the most avant garde of all Schubert's songs. And it is still undoubtedly a Schubert song: the supple arch of the melody, the tender caress of the harmony, and the joyful sorrow and sorrowful joy of the combination of the two is unlike the work of any other composer.

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