Schubert almost finished Über allen Zauber Liebe (Above All Magic— Love) (D. 682) in late 1820: only the final cadence remained to be completed (and eventually was by Dutch musicologist Reinhard van Hoorick). Why he never wrote those four bars is a mystery: the song itself is one of his most charming settings of the poems of his intimate friend Johann Mayrhofer and it would have been the work of a moment to write the final four bars. As it stands, Über allen Zauber Liebe is one of the most beguiling of all Schubert's fragments: a delicately delightful strophic setting in two parts, a lilting opening section in G major in 6/8 time and a faster closing section in 2/4 time suspended over an A major seventh chord.

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