Schubert set Friedrich Schiller's poem "Hoffnung" (Hope) twice, once in August 1815 (D. 251) and then again in April 1819 (D. 637). The first version is a bright-eyed, folklike setting that bounces along above detached chords in the piano accompaniment. The second setting is more recognizably an art song with a more interesting melody and a more complicated accompaniment. Apparently, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau preferred the latter setting; not only did he not bother to record the earlier one in his 23-disc survey of Schubert's lieder, but he dismisses it in his book Schubert's Song: A Biographical Study as "not much more than a little folk-song." While clearly not on the same level as the later Hoffnung or most of his other Schiller settings, the early Hoffnung is by no means a wholly negligible song: any Schubert song whose melody is as cheerfully openhearted as this one deserves more than total dismissal.

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