Question/Answer

Discussion Topic

SCHÜBERT

ERLKING

 

Historical background

Schubert composed this work in 1815 when he was seventeen years old. Schubert’s longtime friend, Josef von Spaun, wrote a famous account of the ballade’s composition:

 

“We found Schubert all aglow, reading the Erlkönig aloud from the book. He paced up and down several times with the book, suddenly he sat down and in no time at all (just as quickly as one can write) there was the glorious Ballad finished on the paper. We ran with it to the Seminary, for there was no pianoforte at [Schubert’s home], and there, on the very same evening, the Erlkönig was sung and enthusiastically received.” (Deutsch, Memoirs, 131)

 

The Schubert scholar Maurice Brown believes Spaun’s account is most likely a compression of several events, especially since Schubert normally made preliminary sketches for his works. Brown suggests that either his friends came upon him near the completion of a longer composition process or Schubert’s performance at the college was based upon sketches which he later amplified into a complete score. (Brown, 46-47) In any event, audiences have been moved by this ballade for close to two hundred years, not because of the rapidity of composition or the fact that Schubert wrote it at the ripe age of seventeen, but because it evokes such a visceral response in the audience.

 

Analysis

A successful performance of Erlking requires the skills of professional musicians, both as soloist and accompanist, and still disaster lurks in the wings. The endurance required from the vocalist is different, but no less significant. While the range is not abnormal (spanning an octave and a fifth), the singer must rapidly move to extreme ranges with little preparation and alter the character of his or her voice to suit the individual who is speaking. During the nineteenth century, it was not uncommon to have a quartet perform the work.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brown, David. Tchaikovsky: The Early Years 1840-1874.New York: W. W. Norton, 1978.

 

 

1. What is it about the accompaniment that establishes a mood of menace and foreboding as well as suggesting a wild nighttime ride on horseback?

 

2. Aside from the low range, how does the father’s musical style convey his attempts to soothe the anxiety of his son?

 

3. What musical features reflect the son’s terror?

 

Be sure to spend lots of time with the music before answering the questions.