5.3.2: Franz Schubert, “Elf King”

For our next example, we will return to the Viennese composer Franz Schubert. We have already examined his approach to musical storytelling using the song cycle as a vehicle. Now we will see how he tells a complex story within a single song. Our example will be perhaps his most famous song, “Elf King” (1815; German: “Erlkönig”). This ballad was inspired by centuries of folk tradition, but also exhibits Schubert’s thorough rejection of folk style.

Seeing as Schubert’s career was addressed in the previous section, we will start right in with the ballad itself. Before we can discuss the music, however, we must examine the text. And before we can examine the text, we must know something about the famous and influential poet who wrote it, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832).

Image 5.11: This lithograph by Josef Kriehuber was completed in 1846—nearly two decades after Schubert’s death. Source: Wikipedia Attribution: Josef Kriehuber License: Public Domain

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

For not being a musician himself, Goethe had an enormous influence on German song composers of the era. To begin with, he wrote hundreds of poetic texts that were intended to be set to music—and indeed, countless composers set his texts thousands of times. However, Goethe also had very strong opinions about how his texts should be set to music. These were informed by his fascination with folk culture, which—following the ideas of Herder—he esteemed highly.

Goethe desired that composers setting his texts do their best to imitate folk style, which we have seen well represented in the ballad “Pretty Polly.” Specifically, he thought that all such songs should be strophic, that they should be simple and accessible, and that the composer should make no effort to interpret the text through music. The purpose of the musical setting, in Goethe’s mind, was simply to allow the text to be sung. The listener’s focus should be entirely on the words, which the singer would interpret through subtle variations from verse to verse.

Image 5.12: This portrait of Goethe was completed by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein in 1786. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Attribution: Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein License: Public Domain

Goethe studied folk poetry closely and imitated a number of folk forms in his own song texts. One of these was the ballad. Goethe was particularly influenced by the ballad forms of northern Europe, which had a unique set of characteristics. The stories told in such ballads were preoccupied with supernatural forces and often included dialogue between human and non-human characters. They also ended in disaster. (All of this is true of “The Gosport Tragedy,” which concludes with a ghost taking her revenge, although the supernatural element is absent in “Pretty Polly.”)

“Elf King”

Goethe and other German poets who took their inspiration from European folk traditions often began by translating folk ballads into their own language. Such was the origin of “Elf King,” which began life as a Danish folk ballad and was first translated by Herder. (The German title of the ballad, “Erlkönig,” in fact represents a mistranslation from the Dutch original; “Erlkönig” means “King of the Alder Trees,” while the original title, “Ellerkonge,” means “King of the Elves.”) Goethe’s version of the ballad tells the same story as the Dutch original, but the specific words are entirely his own.

Here is the text to Goethe’s poem. This literal translation does not capture the meter or rhyme scheme of the original, but it tells the story as Goethe intended:

Who rides so late through night and wind? It is the father with his child.

He has the little one well in the arm

He holds him secure, he holds him warm.

“My son, why hide your face in fear?” “See you not, Father, the Elf King?

The Elf King with crown and flowing cloak?” “My son, it is a wisp of fog.”

“You sweet child, come along with me! Such wonderful games I’ll play with you; Many lovely flowers are at the shore,

My mother has many golden garments.”

“My father, my father, and do you not hear, What the Elf King quietly promises to me?” “Be calm, stay calm, my child;

The wind is rustling the dry leaves.”

“Won’t you come along with me, my fine boy? My daughters shall attend to you so nicely; My daughters do their nightly dance,

And they will rock you and dance you and sing you to sleep.”

“My father, my father, do you not see there, Elf King’s daughters in that dark place?” “My son, my son, I see it definitely

It is the willow trees looking so grey.”

“I love you; I’m charmed by your beautiful shape; And if you are not willing, then I will use force.” “My father, my father, now he has taken hold of me! Elf King has hurt me!”

The father shudders, he rides swiftly, He holds in arm the groaning child,

He reaches the farmhouse with effort and urgency; In his arms, the child was dead.

translation from CPDL

Image 5.13: Moritz von Schwind painted this scene, entitled Der Erlkönig (The Elf King), in 1830. Source: Wikimedia Commons Attribution: Moritz von Schwind License: Public Domain

In writing his version of the ballad, Goethe used simple language that reflected the speech of ordinary Germans. The structure of his poem, however, is fairly sophisticated. The first and last stanzas are spoken in the voice of an unidentified narrator. The first sets the scene, while the last delivers the tragic conclusion. The internal stanzas consist entirely of speech from the three characters: father, son, and Elf King. The father and son converse in stanzas two, four, and six, the son expressing his fear and the father offering assurances that there is no real danger. The Elf King seeks to tempt the child away in stanzas three and five. In stanza seven, the Elf King changes strategies and takes the child by force, provoking a frenzied response. The poem can be read literally or as a metaphor for childhood illness and death.

Goethe first created his ballad for use in a play entitled The Fisherwoman (1782). In the first scene of the play, the title character is seen washing dishes and singing a simple folk song (“Elf King”), as befits her lowly social status. The music was composed by the actress herself, Corona Schröter. In setting the poem, Schröter adhered closely to Goethe’s preferences. She created a strophic setting in which every verse of the ballad is sung to the same melody. That melody, in turn, is charming in its simplicity. Schröter makes no effort to capture the drama or terror of the text in her music. In short, it is easy to hear her version8 as being a “real” folk song.

“Elf King” Composer: Franz Schubert Performance: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, accompanied by Gerald Moore (1988 remaster).

Time	Form	What to listen for
0’00”	Introduction	The piano accompaniment seems to echo the beating of the horse’s hooves and the blowing of the wind; use of the minor mode sets a serious tone
0’23”	Stanza 1	This stanza is delivered entirely in the narrator’s voice, which is in the middle of the singer’s range
0’56”	Stanza 2	This stanza is split between the father’s voice (low range) and son’s voice (high range)
1’29”	Stanza 3	This stanza is delivered in the Elf King’s voice (high range); the music changes to the major mode and the volume decreases
1’52”	Stanza 4	This stanza begins in the son’s voice and concludes in the father’s voice; the music returns to the minor mode and the volume increases
2’14”	Stanza 5	This stanza is delivered in the Elf King’s voice (high range); the music again changes to the major mode and the volume decreases
2’32”	Stanza 6	This stanza begins in the son’s voice and concludes in the father’s voice; the music returns to the minor mode and the volume increases
3’00”	Stanza 7	This stanza begins in the Elf King’s voice and concludes in the son’s voice; the music begins in the major mode but quickly returns to minor
3’24”	Stanza 8	This stanza is delivered in the narrator’s voice
3’39”		The hoofbeats heard in the piano slow to a halt as the father arrives at his destination
3’47”		The final line is delivered without accompaniment; the piano provides a concluding cadence

This first setting of Goethe’s poem is quite unlike Schubert’s “Elf King.”

By the time Schubert took on Goethe’s ballad, the text was well known and had been set to music by many composers. Schubert was unknown at the time, but his innovative and compelling version of “Elf King” would attract a great deal of attention and establish him as an important composer of songs.

Schubert completely ignored Goethe’s instructions. Instead of taking a folk-like approach, he went to great lengths to capture the characters and events depicted in the text. His setting begins with a turbulent piano introduction, in which we hear both the pounding hooves and raging storm. At the end of the song, we hear in the piano the gradual slowing of the horse as it comes to a clattering stop in front of the farmhouse. All of these are examples of text painting, a technique by which composers translate dramatic elements into sound. Text painting, of course, went against the folk tradition, as did using the piano to set a mood. In addition, Schubert’s piano part is much too difficult to be genuine folk music. Only a highly accomplished player could ever hope to execute it well.

Schubert’s disobedience does not stop there. His setting of the ballad is not strophic but through-composed, with each passage of music carefully designed to express the associated text. Schubert creates a sort of miniature, one-man opera with his setting. Although “Elf King” is performed by a solo singer, that singer assumes all four characters (narrator, father, son, and Elf King) and portrays each in their respective dramatic roles. This is done using a variety of means. To begin with, the voice of each character is heard in a unique range. The narrator sings in a neutral, middle range, while the father sings in the low range, with a deep, booming voice. The son sings in a high, childlike range, while the Elf King sings quietly in an even higher range.

Schubert also uses other techniques to distinguish his characters and bring the scene to life. While the father and son repeat the same melodies and rhythms, the Elf King constantly introduces new musical material as he tries various approaches to tempting the child away. The Elf King is also the only character who sings in the major mode—a musical embodiment of his charming speech. He does not shift to the minor mode until his final threatening words: “then I will use force.”

The greatest musical disruption takes place with the final line of text. In order to maximize the impact of the story’s tragic conclusion, Schubert silences the piano and has the singer deliver the news out of time and without accompaniment. Following the final two words, “was dead,” the piano executes an abrupt cadence and the song is over.