Schubert's Sonett II (D. 629) was the second of three settings he made in November 1818 of Petrarch's sonnets, translated by August von Schlegel. As with the other two settings, the challenge of turning a complicated rhyme scheme and a structurally difficult poetic form into music seems to have elicited a highly diversified compositional response from Schubert. Fortunately, the subject of the poem—a rejected lover wandering alone in the wilderness—was one Schubert had always found and would always find sympathetic. Indeed, the imagery of Sonett II seems to predict in many of its details Schubert's Winterreise from nine years later.

As with Sonett I, Schubert uses many different types of music to set Sonett II. A simple Lied serves for the first quatrain, a recitative and arioso for the second quatrain, another quicker recitative for the first tercet, and, after a brief declamatory line, the final lines are set to the most expansively lyrical music, all interspersed with piano interludes that comment on both the vocal line and the poetic imagery. Whether this type of setting works as a song is arguable; the very diversity of Schubert's response may reduce its gut impacct. But no one would disagree that the final couplet, at least, is inspired Schubert.

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