Der Mondabend (The Moonlit Evening) (D. 141) of 1815 is a young man's song: a song of giddy joy, easy happiness, and, most of all, passionate impatience. In four short, fast strophically set verses, the singer hymns the moon, sings the glory of the night sky, transverses a moonlit landscape, and all the time longs to get to the the far fairer glories of his Silli, apparently the name of the object of his affections. Schubert's music is light, slight, and wholly unpretentious. If his Der Mondabend is not yet great Schubert, it is still perfectly charming and wholly cheerful Schubert.

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