It could be argued that five of Schubert's six settings of the poems of Johann Jacobi from August 1816 form a sort of cycle. The first of them, An Chloen (To Chloe), promised the girl of the title domestic bliss in a humble cottage, and the second song, the Hochzeitslied (Wedding Song) (D. 463), clearly takes another step toward fulfilling this promise. Schubert sets Jacobi's six verses strophically in a hearty two-in-a-bar E flat major. Although for some singers six verses is four too many (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, for example, sings only two of the song's verses in his recording), the song's rustic happiness does succeed in evoking a peasant wedding's atmosphere of good cheer.

© All Music Guide