Among the composers who set his poetry to music are Schubert, Robert and Clara Schumann, Brahms, Josef Rheinberger, Mahler (song cycles Kindertotenlieder, Rückert-Lieder), Max Reger, Richard Strauss, Zemlinsky, Hindemith, Bartók, Berg, Hugo Wolf and Heinrich Kaspar Schmid.
Der Zwerg (The Dwarf), an opera by Alexander von Zemlinsky