In 1834, Mendelssohn set the poem Auf Flügeln des Gesanges by Heinrich Heine and published it as the second of his Six Songs for Voice and Piano. It achieved a popularity that has lasted through the present and has been arranged for many instrument combinations. On Wings of Song is has the typical form of an early Mendelssohn lied, in strophic form with a transformation in the final verse. The rippling accompaniment suggests the flowing Ganges, to which the lovers fly ‘on wings of song’.