The poem (Wilhelm Müller – printed original edition 1824)

From: Winterreise – Song V

Am Brunnen vor dem Tore,
da steht ein Lindenbaum:
ich träumt’ in seinem Schatten
so manchen süßen Traum.

Ich schnitt in seine Rinde
so manches liebe Wort;
es zog in Freud’ und Leide
zu ihm mich immer fort.

Ich mußt’ auch heute wandern
vorbei in tiefer Nacht,
da hab’ ich noch im Dunkeln
die Augen zugemacht.

Und seine Zweige rauschten,
als riefen sie mir zu:
Komm her zu mir, Geselle,
hier findst du deine Ruh’!

Die kalten Winde bliesen
mir grad’ ins Angesicht;
der Hut flog mir vom Kopfe,
ich wendete mich nicht.

Nun bin ich manche Stunde
entfernt von jenem Ort,
und immer hör’ ich’s rauschen:
Du fändest Ruhe dort!

English translation

By the well before the gate,
there stands a lime tree:
in its shadow I dreamed
many a sweet dream.

I carved into its bark
many a loving word;
in joy and sorrow alike
I was always drawn back to it.

Even today I had to wander
past it in the deep night,
and there, still in the darkness,
I closed my eyes.

And its branches rustled,
as if they were calling to me:
Come here to me, companion,
here you shall find your rest!

The cold winds blew
straight into my face;
my hat flew from my head,
I did not turn around.

Now I am many hours
away from that place,
and still I hear the rustling:
You would find rest there!

Work data & overview

• Composer: Franz Schubert (1797–1828)
• Cycle: Winterreise D 911, No. 5 (Der Lindenbaum)
• Text source: Wilhelm Müller, Winterreise (1823/24)
• Composition: 1827; first printed edition 1828 (Part I)
• Key / metre / tempo: E major (frame), E minor (passage), 6/8, moderate
• Duration: approx. 3:00–4:00 minutes
• Scoring: voice and piano (transpositions common)
• Form: strophic with varied accompaniment

Data on the poem

• Author: Wilhelm Müller (1794–1827)
• Stanza form: six stanzas of four lines each (folk-song style)
• Devices: image of remembrance, personification, nature metaphor, contrast between dream and reality, motif of the call

Genesis & cycle context

In the early cycle, the Lindenbaum stands as a rock of memory: a resting place that the wanderer does not choose. Between Rigidity and Flood, this song forms the deceptively tonal centre of the first part: E major appears like an illusion of warmth.

Precisely for that reason, the song is so crucial. It offers not only memory, but a real alternative to continuing the journey: lingering, turning back, resting. Yet this rest remains ambiguous – it may mean consolation, but just as much standstill and ending.

More on the cycle in the Winterreise – Overview, and on its psychological depth in the article Winterreise as a journey into the abyss of the soul.

Performance practice & reception

Pulse & breath: an even 6/8 flow, without haste; “folk song” does not mean “simple.” The line remains straight, the vibrato narrow, so that the song’s ambivalence is not lost in sentimentality.

Piano texture: the well-known rustling of the sextuplets calm and unsentimental. The E-minor darkening must be clearly contoured, because it is here that the idyllic surface breaks open.

Historical reference interpreters

• Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau – baritone
• Hermann Prey – baritone

Current interpreters with whom I collaborate

• Gerrit Illenberger
• Benjamin Russell
• Matthias Lika
• Johann Kristinsson
• Johannes Kammler

Analysis – music

6/8 rocking pulse & folk-song gesture

The rocking 6/8 pulse creates a calm field of remembrance. The melody works with repeated notes, simple triadic turns, and small seconds – folk-song nearness as the expressive form of memory.

Yet this apparent simplicity is highly artificial. The song sounds natural, but remains open in its meaning: the lime tree is not merely a tree, but a space of signs for home, memory, shelter, and death. How such open signs function in song I discuss in the background article The semiotics of song.

Harmony, strophic form & the dialectic of memory

E major frames the longing; E minor breaks it open. Strophic variation prevents uniformity: the night stanza, the calling motif, and the final stanza each carry their own colour. The rustling of the lime tree appears as an inner voice – harmonically stable, yet psychologically dangerous.

Visual representation

Artistic visualisation by Evgenia Foelsche:
The image is divided in two – like a memory-picture that both comforts and hurts. On the left stands a great lime tree in sunlight. Its leaves are green, the air feels springlike and mild. A heart is carved into the bark – a sign of former closeness and of a promise that once meant warmth. Beside the tree, however, there stands a gravestone, with a well before it; in the background a walled gate encloses the scene like a silent frame. Life, memory, and death stand here side by side, irreconcilably.

The right half of the image tips into darkness. The wanderer passes by the lime-tree scene, yet does not look at it: he presses onward, as though he had to escape the temptation. His hat has been blown from his head and lies on the ground – a sign of unrest, of the loss of support and protection. In the dark half, leaves are falling, the air feels colder, the colours die away. The transition from the bright, almost idyllic space of memory to the wintry present is like a cut through the soul.

In this way the image condenses the song’s core: the lime tree is more than a place – it is an inner call. It stands for rest, shelter, and the longing for standstill – yet at the same time it carries within it the motif of finality. The gravestone makes the comforting invitation ambiguous: as the promise of peace, but also as a dangerous nearness to giving up.

Just as Schubert’s music shifts between tender remembrance and icy onward movement, the image too shows a wanderer who deliberately turns away. He decides against lingering, against the deceptive warmth of the past – and in favour of the road that hurts.

Analysis – poetry

The poem “Am Brunnen vor dem Tore (Der Lindenbaum)” belongs among the best-known and at the same time most ambivalent songs of Winterreise. It marks a moment of apparent calm and familiarity that, on closer examination, proves to be a dangerous temptation. The lime tree stands not only for memory and shelter, but also for standstill, seduction, and possible self-abandonment.

The lime tree as a place of remembrance

Am Brunnen vor dem Tore,
da steht ein Lindenbaum;
ich träumt’ in seinem Schatten
so manchen süßen Traum.

The first stanza introduces a familiar, almost idyllic place. The lime tree stands by a well, that is, by a source of life, and is linked to dreams, protection, and the past. It clearly belongs to the world before loss.

The tree as witness to love and sorrow

Ich schnitt in seine Rinde
so manches liebe Wort;
es zog in Freud’ und Leide
zu ihm mich immer fort.

The lime tree becomes the bearer of a personal history. The carved words stand for attachment, familiarity, and duration. Yet already here the place’s ambivalence becomes visible: it is bound not only to joy, but also to sorrow.

Passing by in darkness

Ich mußt’ auch heute wandern
vorbei in tiefer Nacht,
da hab’ ich still im Dunkeln
die Augen zugemacht.

The present is marked by night and darkness. The wanderer passes by the lime tree without consciously looking at it. Closing his eyes can be understood as a gesture of protection: he withdraws from the power of memory and from the temptation emanating from this place.

The seductive voice of rest

Und seine Zweige rauschten,
als riefen sie mir zu:
„Komm her zu mir, Geselle,
hier findst du deine Ruh’!“

The lime tree is now given a voice. The rustling of its branches becomes an invitation, almost a promise. The offered “rest” is ambiguous: it may mean shelter, but also final rest, standstill, or death.

Resistance to temptation

Die kalten Winde bliesen
mir grad’ ins Angesicht;
der Hut flog mir vom Kopfe,
ich wendete mich nicht.

Nature now turns harsh: cold, wind, and loss accompany the wanderer. And yet he does not turn around. Paradoxically, the outer hardness helps him to resist the inner temptation.

The after-echo of temptation

Nun bin ich manche Stunde
entfernt von jenem Ort,
und immer hör’ ich’s rauschen:
„Du fändest Ruhe dort!“

Even at a distance the lime tree does not lose its power. Its voice continues to echo inwardly. The place has been left behind, but not overcome. The temptation remains present and accompanies the wanderer as an inner alternative to the further journey.

“Der Lindenbaum” is therefore not a song of simple longing, but a poem about memory as danger. The past lures with consolation, yet threatens movement and thus the continued life of the self.

Meaning & effect within the cycle

Within Winterreise, “Der Lindenbaum” occupies a central position. It forms a point of rest within the cycle, though a deceptive one. For the first time the wanderer is offered a real alternative: turning back, lingering, giving up the path.

That the wanderer continues on is not a triumphant decision, but a painful act of self-assertion. The lime tree remains present as an inner voice and anticipates the later motifs of death and standstill in the cycle.

Precisely because the song does not fix its meaning once and for all, it remains effective across time. More on this in the article Art that keeps working.

Evgenia Fölsche – performances & audio

Evgenia Fölsche shapes the rustling sextuplets dully and evenly, while the vocal line remains unaffected. The E-minor stanza gains particular weight through tonal densification.

Listening example: Der Lindenbaum with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore

Back to the Winterreise overview