Steve - The Erlking

The Erlking was a fictional character that was used as the object of many German poems. This fictional creature would originally haunt forest and carry travellers to their deaths. The name originally means in Old German "Alder King".

The version of the Erlking that Johann Wolfgnag van Goethe used in his poem is a monster that preys on children. In 1815, Franz Schubert adopted the poem and turned it into a musical composition. Scubert's musical composition only used a piano and one vocalist. The musical composition has four main characters: the Narrator, the Father, the Son, and the Erkling. All four voices are don differentyl by the one vocalist in order to capture the individial character. The piano imitates in its hurried triplets (notes played together in three for one musical beat) the hoofs of a horse in order to create a sensation of fear.

The main idea of the musical composition is that the Erlking takes the Son away and therefore has him end up dead in the Father's arms. The theme of the composition is repeated huriedly and the music even gets louder in the final two stanzas of the poem. This helps create the helplessness that the Son is going through

"My father. my father and don't you see there
the Erlking's daughters in the shadows?"
"My son, my son I see it clearly;
the old willows look so gray"

During this stanza the music gets louder and louder until finally during this part of the last stanza:

"he reaches the courtyard weary and anxious:
in his arms the child was dead."

the music almost comes to an abrupt stop.The final musical parts of the composition are minor chords. Minor chords are usually used in music to create a sad feeling as well as a depressed mode.


How does Schubert's musical composition relate to other literary works that we have read in class