The text of Schubert's song Cora an die Sonne (Cora to the Sun), from August 1815, is a poetic prayer by the Viennese poetess Gabriele von Baumberg, invoking the sun to send "a soft, gentle ray of light...after so many gloomy days." Schubert, who seems to have been particularly enamored of von Baumberg's poetry that month, sets her prayer as a solemn ceremonial song in E flat major. With its imperious ascending yet humbly supplicating vocal melody and its dotted chordal piano accompaniment, Cora an die Sonne sounds very much like the music for a pagan priestess hymning the sun god.

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