Schumann wrote these three songs during 1840, one of his most prolific and happy periods. However, the first song, Abends am Strand (which is third in the collection), was written in April, to a Heine poem, and the second two were written in October to Eichendorff poems, but they are still somewhat unified by a theme, if not as tightly as a song cycle; each concerns a search, the first, an obsessive search for treasure, the second, the varying searches of two friends for accomplishments, the last, the search for other lands.

Only one of these searches is unambiguously successful. The first begins with ominous, heavy minor descending passages from the piano, depicting the frenzied digging and also the eventual rock fall. There is a moment of melodious contrast with the angels' song, and an almost mockingly light touch as the rocks and debris crush the treasure hunter, and his search ends with his death.

In the second, the assured, almost strutting marching theme that opens the song and the happiness of one man, with his wife and children and home (written with such a warmth and tenderness the listener can imagine Schumann is reflecting his own seemingly assured future happiness with Clara), are a vivid contrast to the more adventuresome melodiousness of the one who went further afield in his searches, and was drawn by seductive sirens. Whether this is a sad contrast or not is up to the interpreters.

Though the piano paints a clear picture of the rising mists and rippling waters, Schumann also carefully preserved the ambiguity of the last poem, which makes it unclear whether the sailor is enjoying rest after his voyages or wishes to be upon the boat disappearing over the horizon. The music describing the strange lands is compelling, but so is the tranquility of the music depicting the night, without any overt cry of longing for those lands.

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Even though Robert Schumann frequently made textual changes to the poems he set, he deleted only one word from Abends am Strand, Op. 45/3 (Evening on the Beach), the closing song of Romanzen und Balladen, Vol. I, Op. 45. Conversations with a fisherman and views of a ship as it melts into the fog provide the atmosphere for this pleasant, soothing composition. Marked Ruhig (tranquil), it opens with eighth notes that initially drift like waves and then begin to stir with talk of storms. When discussion of foreign lands arises, the previously steady voice part jumps wildly to magnify the cultural differences between the people of Germany, India, and the Lapland region. The excitement of the dialogue is achieved musically through syncopation and an increase in dynamics and accidentals. As thoughts return to the familiar shore, the original tempo and the rippling motion of the accompaniment resume. Eventually darkness and silence fall over the beach scene, and the voice whispers its last phrase while the piano plays a few more deep, quiet chords.

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