Die Berge (The Mountains) (D. 634) was one of a group of settings of the poetry of Friedrich von Schlegel that Schubert made in March 1820. Schlegel's poetry embodies Ruskin's notion of the pathetic fallacy, that is, the idea that nature mirrors and responds sympathetically to the emotional states of human beings. Schubert, one of the great pantheists among composers, saw God made manifest in nature and clearly felt a kinship with Schlegel's poetry. He set Die Berge with great fidelity to the text. In the first verse of Die Berge, Schlegel's poet seeks like the mountains to rise upward to the realms of the gods, and Schubert's singer rises with him in quickly rising scales and arpeggios. Even the pianist accompanies the singer with his climbing scales at the end of the verse. In the second verse, however, Schlegel's poet realizes that he is rooted to the earth, and Schubert's singer turns to minor keys with the piano accompaniment agreeing by playing in unison with the singer. But in Schlegel's third and final verse, the poet feels noble courage swelling in his noble heart, and the singer and the piano return to the music of the opening verse, complete with the pianist's climbing scales.

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