Der Abend (The Evening) (D. 221, op. posth. 118/2), of July 15, 1815, is the second song by Schubert to bear this title (the first was his setting of Matthisson's poem of the same title, D. 108). This Der Abend is based on a poem by Ludwig Kosegarten, a poem deliberately modeled on the Ossian poems by James Macpherson. The Ossian poems were themselves deliberately modeled on what Macpherson took to be old Scottish ballads, and the heraldic tone of Schubert's song probably represents an attempt to emulate those models. Kosegarten's three verses are filled with images of nightfall and tragedy, and with the sort of fake medieval imagery that the early Romantics often took for the real thing. Although clearly not one of Schubert's greatest inspirations, it is an interesting attempt by the young composer to write in a style to which he never quite became accustomed.

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