RCM Basic History – Carmen (Romantic)

Erlking

Erlking (Erlkönig) was written by Franz Schubert during the Romantic time period and when he was still a teenager (1815). This lied is based on Goethe’s, a famous poet at that time, ballad and the legend on whoever gets touched by the king of elves will die. Only a single piano and one voice will play this piece. The voice will have to be able to sing in low, medium and high range because it will have to play the four characters, the narrator, the father, the son and the Erlking. The father is in a low range and in minor mode, the son is in high range and in minor mode, the narrator is in middle range with minor mode and the Erlking is in the middle range and major mode. The Erlking sounds coaxing at first but then becomes insistent, the father sounds reassuring and the son, because of the high range, sounds frightened. This lied’s tempo is in schnell, German for fast and this whole piece of music is written and sang in German. At the beginning of this piece, the piano plays triplets and these sound like the horse’s hooves thumping the ground at a gallop. The piano is then accompanied by the voice at bar 15 and the narrator starts the voice followed then by the dialog between the father, the son and the Erlking. The narrator will not say anything else except for the very end. The story takes place at night where a father is taking his son back to their home. The child then, is visited by the Erlking who wants this child to come with him. The child tells his father that the Erlking is coaxing him to go with him but the father denies it. Finally, the Erlking gets angry and grasps the child. The child shouts out and the father quickens the horse. When the father reaches the courtyard, the child was already dead. The chords and the rest before the words “lay dead” create an eerie mood and suspense.