It’s a Monday morning in Autumn, and time for a bit of Sturm und Drang.<\/p>\n
(and this is where I confess that I just had to look up ‘Drang’, which turns out to mean stress.\u00a0 There you go.\u00a0 We all learned something new there…)<\/p>\n
Erlk\u00f6nig is, when it comes down to it, just a fabulous piece of music.\u00a0 It’s clever, clever musical writing that builds on Goethe’s spooky poem until you can just about hear what’s going on without understanding the words.\u00a0 Incidentally, this is another one of those pieces of music where you slightly hate the composer for composing something so spectacular at the age of 18 – not to mention for writing something with such a wrist-destroying left<\/strike> right hand part (all those octave triplets are just cruel).<\/p>\n
[youtube http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8noeFpdfWcQ&version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0]<\/p>\n
There’s a lot going on in this song.\u00a0 The story contains three characters \u2013 the anxious father, riding as fast as he can to get home; his young son, tormented by visions of the Erl-King (which means Elf-King or Alder-King, depending on who you ask), and the Erl-King himself, unseen by the father, and possibly a figment of the son\u2019s feverish hallucinations, but certainly terrifying and ultimately deadly.\u00a0 The characters all get different melodies within the story, with the son’s high theme sounding like a cry of distress against the deeper, reassuring major keys of the father’s song, and the Erl-King’s lines all being very lyrical and sweet. In the early parts of the song, the Erl-King is quite seductive in his offers to the child, but by the end of the song, he resorts to violence, and the father reaches his home only to find his son dead in his arms.\u00a0 (You can always rely on Schubert for a cheery ending.)\u00a0 Apparently, the Goethe poem was inspired by the sight of a man riding through the woods one night, carrying his sick child to a doctor.\u00a0 Nobody has recorded whether this child survived, but one rather suspects not.<\/p>\n
If all the fun and games in the vocal line aren’t enough for you, there’s also a party going on in the piano part with the triplets sounding like the galloping beat of the horse\u2019s hooves on the road, and generally stormy things going on in the bass line.<\/p>\n
I got to sing this for my exam<\/a> last year, which was brilliant fun, in fact, and it’s an interesting challenge trying to sound like four different people (there is also a narrator at start and end) while being only one.\u00a0 The recording I’ve chosen above is by Jessye Norman, and it’s very dramatic, which I love (and borrowed shamelessly from); it’s actually more usual to have this piece sung by a tenor, but I think women have the advantage in making the child suitably high-pitched and frightening, and the Erl-King properly otherworldly.<\/p>\n Of course, I also love and adore the Ian Bostridge<\/a> recording.\u00a0 I mean, it’s Ian Bostridge, what’s not to like?\u00a0 Also, he has a really good seductive-creepy face for the Erl-King, which is always a good thing.\u00a0 And a beautiful voice, of course.\u00a0 And this baritone version, by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau<\/a>, is also rather good, and the pictures are lovely, though it’s let down rather by the way Fischer-Dieskau sings “Und bist du nicht willig, so brauch ich Gewalt” (And if you aren’t willing, I’ll have thee by force) in much the same way he might ask for another cup of tea.\u00a0 I really don’t understand this, since the rest of the song is beautifully expressive and dramatic, with all the characters very well delineated.<\/p>\n Of course, when you have a poem with this much potential, it’s pretty much inevitable that other composers will have a play with it, too.\u00a0 Here’s Carl Loewe’s version<\/a>, written only two years after Schubert’s, in 1817.\u00a0 To my ear, it has much less of a sense of driving forward than Schubert’s – you can hear, in Schubert’s music, the constant racing hoofbeats of the horse, which are missing here.\u00a0 Having said that, this is still very lovely, and I love Ulrich Hielscher’s voice.\u00a0 And the spooky, spooky, creeping up on you surprise “TOD!!!!!” at the end.<\/p>\n Oh lordy, and there are even more versions, which don’t entirely convince me – this one, by Johann Friedrich Reichardt<\/a> sounds very much like a folk song, and this one, by Carl Friedrich Zelter<\/a> sounds like that A. A. Milne song about Christopher Robin saying his prayers<\/a>.\u00a0 I fear there is a good reason why Schubert’s is the famous one…<\/p>\n Here are the lyrics, with my translation:<\/p>\n
| Wer reitet so sp\u00e4t durch Nacht und Wind? \nEs ist der Vater mit seinem Kind; \nEr hat den Knaben wohl in dem Arm, \nEr fa\u00dft ihn sicher, er h\u00e4lt ihn warm.”Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bang dein Gesicht?” \n“Siehst, Vater, du den Erlk\u00f6nig nicht? \nDen Erlenk\u00f6nig mit Kron und Schweif?” \u2013 \n“Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif.””Du liebes Kind, komm, geh mit mir! \nGar sch\u00f6ne Spiele spiel’ ich mit dir; \nManch’ bunte Blumen sind an dem Strand, \nMeine Mutter hat manch g\u00fclden Gewand.”<\/p>\n “Mein Vater, mein Vater, und h\u00f6rest du nicht, “Willst, feiner Knabe, du mit mir gehen? “Mein Vater, mein Vater, und siehst du nicht dort “Ich liebe dich, mich reizt deine sch\u00f6ne Gestalt; “Mein Vater, mein Vater, jetzt fa\u00dft er mich an! Dem Vater grauset’s, er reitet geschwind, | Who rides so late, through the night and wind? \nIt is the father with his child \nHe has the boy safe in his arms \nHe clasps him closely, he keeps him warm.\u201cMy son, why do you hide your face so fearfully?\u201d \n\u201cFather, can you not see the Erl-King? \nThe Erl-King, with crown and tail?\u201d \u2013 \n\u201cMy son, it is a wisp of cloud.\u201d\u201cThou dear child, come, go with me! \nFull lovely games I will play with thee; \nMany bright flowers bloom on that shore \nAnd my mother has golden robes.\u201d \u2013<\/p>\n \u201cMy father, my father, and do you not hear \u201cWilt thou go with me, lovely boy, \u201cMy father, my father, and do you not see \u201cI love thee, thy beautiful form entices me The father shudders, he rides faster It’s a Monday morning in Autumn, and time for a bit of Sturm und Drang. (and this is where I confess that I just had to look up ‘Drang’, which turns out to mean stress.\u00a0 There you go.\u00a0 We all learned something new there…) Erlk\u00f6nig is, when it comes down to it, just a fabulous […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[97,188,227,257,269,270,287,326,356,363,396,398,441,738],"class_list":["post-411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-carl-friedrich-zelter","tag-dietrich-fischer-dieskau","tag-erlkonig","tag-franz-schubert","tag-gerald-finley","tag-gerald-moore","tag-gracie-fields","tag-ian-bostridge","tag-jessye-norman","tag-johann-friedrich-reichardt","tag-julius-drake","tag-karl-loewe","tag-lieder","tag-ulrich-hielscher"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/catesings.catespeaks.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |