In August 1815, the 18-year-old Franz Schubert was in love. Perhaps he was in love with Gabriele von Baumberg for her striking beauty, perhaps with her emancipated political views, or perhaps merely with her poetry. Of the astounding 35 poems set by Schubert in that month, nine were by Goethe, six were by Schiller, and five were by Baumberg. In addition to being placed in such august company, Baumberg was also the first woman whose poetry Schubert set.

The song Abendständchen. An Lina (Evening Serenade. To Lina) (D. 265) is one of the prettiest of Schubert's Baumberg settings from August 1815. Baumberg's text is apparently a translation from a French poem, still unidentified at the time, whose courtly expression of disguised erotic longing give it an eighteenth-century character. Schubert responded to Baumberg's poetic translation with a strophic song of eighteenth-century charm. Indeed, several critics have compared it with Haydn in its effortless elegance; note, for example, the easy counterpoint of the piano's prelude and postlude. Yet Schubert's setting, for all its gallantry, is still Romantically expressive; note the yearning leaps in the vocal melody in the closing couplets of each of the four verses.

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