Not unlike Kinkel’s thematic scope, her compositional aesthetics range from simple to quite challenging. In a similar way to the works of some of Kinkel’s contemporaries who set the same words, Kinkel’s style embraces such typical principles as recourses to previous compositional techniques; Romantic colouring including rhythm, tone, and time; harmonic and melodic spontaneity; characteristic beginnings and endings; and the use of Romantic irony.

Recourses to previous compositional techniques

Siegmund Freiherr von Seckendorff (1744–1785), whose Goethe setting ‘An den Mond’ is dated 1778, employs a four-bar phrasal structure, and harmony, melody, and piano accompaniment are straightforward, owing to the compositional ideals of his own time. The setting by Andreas Romberg (1767–1824) is characterised by modesty of expressive means. His composition, dated 1793, differs from von Seckendorff’s in so far as it offers some more challenges in the vocal line through suspensions. Like those of von Seckendorff and Romberg, Carl Friedrich Zelter’s 1812 setting of ‘An den Mond’ utilises a four-bar phrasal pattern and a strophic formal plan. The harmonic progression in his Lied is slightly more diverse than in those discussed previously. The second four-bar phrase of each musical stanza includes a descending circle of fifths sequence in combination with two diminished triads. Furthermore, Zelter employs a two-bar piano postlude. Friedrich Heinrich Himmel (1765–1814), too, develops the notion of solo piano passages in his ‘An den Mond’ (1806), which includes a three-bar piano prelude and a four-bar piano postlude. Himmel’s setting is also characterised by a four-bar phrasal pattern, but the harmonic design is slightly more varied, as the second line of each stanza is set to a tonal enclave reached by a mediant progression (E major within the tonal context of C major). Like Himmel, Václav Jan Tomášek (1774–1850), who published his version of Goethe’s ‘An den Mond’ around 1818, emphasised the piano more. The harmonic design is still straightforward throughout the vocal parts though more diverse than the pre-1818 versions, as a number of diminished seventh chords enrich his piano postlude. Tomášek structures his setting in a different way: by grouping three poetic strophes as one musical stanza, each musical stanza is in ternary form (ABA’).