The exact date of Schubert's setting of Carlo Goldoni's "La pastorella al prato" (The Shepherdess in the Meadow, D. 513) for male quartet and piano is unknown. Although he also set the poem from Goldoni's libretto for soprano and piano in 1817, this smoothly mellifluous part song could have been written as early as 1813, as part of Schubert's many settings of Italian texts while under the tutelage of Antonio Salieri. Whereas some scholars hear what Graham Johnson calls "the composer's smile" behind the commonplace modulations, Schubert's amusement at his own cleverness is hard to imagine in so sincere a composer. Whenever it was composed, La pastorella al prato is a simple and charming part song that makes no demands on either the performers or the listeners.

© James Leonard, Rovi