This 1816 setting of Schiller's Des Mädchens Klage (The Maiden's Lament, D. 389) was Schubert's third and last attempt at setting this poem from the second of Schiller's Wallenstein trilogy. In the second of the dramas, Schiller has Wallenstein's daughter Thekla take up a guitar and give voice to her sorrow over her enforced separation from the man she loves. In both of Schubert's pervious settings of the poem, he had ignored that particular bit of stage business and set the text as first an aria and then as an lied with inherently pianistic accompaniment. In the third version, however, Schubert's accompaniment could almost be played by a very busy guitarist: it sounds as if the thumb of the guitarist's right hand is picking out a countermelody while the fingers arpeggiate chords above it. Schubert's vocal melody catches more of the longing of the Maiden in its ever-ascending line. Although Schubert's second setting from 1815 has proven the most popular of the poem's three settings, there is much to recommend in the third and final setting.

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