Schubert's setting of Johann Peter Uz's An die Schlaf (To Sleep) (D. 447) from June 1816 may be one of his shortest and simplest songs: a single page of music for a single four-line poem which, if Schubert had not indicated that he wanted it repeated, would last than a minute in performance. And yet An die Schlaf is as subtly beautiful a song as ever Schubert composed, a song which starts simply in the manner of a hymn and gradually becomes an art song. The opening two lines have a delicate cantilena hovering slowly above a spare accompaniment but as the piano moves from the second to the third line, it blossoms into a tenderly nuanced arpeggiated accompaniment supporting a melody which sinks blissfully into the arms of Morpheus. The piano postlude is gentleness itself: a brief two-part invention which is the aural equivalent of a parent tucking in a child.

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