Page 198 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

Listening Cue
Franz Schubert, Erlkönig (1815) Genre: Art song
Form: Through-composed
tones, but then threatens in dissonant ones, as seduction gives way to abduction. Thus each of the three characters of the story is portrayed with distinct musical qualities (though all are sung by a single voice). This is musical characterization at its finest; the melody and accompaniment not only support the text but also intensify and enrich it. Suddenly the end is reached: The hand of the Elf King (Death) has touched his victim. Anxiety gives way to sorrow as the narrator announces in increasingly somber (minor) tones, “But in his arms, his child was dead!”
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what to listen for: Onomatopoeic music—music that sounds out its meaning at every turn. In this art song, Schubert takes the changing expressive elements of the text (galloping horse, steady reassuring tones of the father, sweet enticements of the Elf King, increasingly frantic cries of the boy) and provides each with characteristic music. Done today, such a treat ment likely would be cartoon music; done by a master songwriter like Schubert, it is great art.
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reAD . . . a detailed Listening Guide of this selection online. LiSTeN TO . . . this selection streaming online.
WATCH . . . an Active Listening Guide of this selection online. WATCH . . . various interpretations of this selection online. DO . . . Listening Exercise 11.1, Schubert, Erlkönig, online.
Just as the tension in Goethe’s poem rises incessantly, from the beginning to the very end, Schubert’s music unfolds continually, without significant repetition. Such a musical composition featuring ever-changing melodic and harmonic material is called through-composed, and Schubert’s Erlkönig, accordingly, is termed a through-composed art song. For lyric poems, as opposed to dramatic ballads like Erlkönig, however, strophic form is often preferred. Here a single poetic mood is maintained from one stanza, or strophe, of the text to the next, and the music is repeated. Most pop songs are written in strophic form, each strophe consisting of a verse and chorus. For a very familiar example of a nineteenth-century art song in strophic form, revisit the famous Brahms Lullaby (Download 5).
Robert Schumann (1810–1856)
Lyric poems almost always deal with love. Indeed, the subject of love domi- nates not only Schubert’s Lieder but also those of Robert and Clara Schumann (Figure 11.5), whose life story as a married couple is itself something of an ode to love.
chapter eleven romanticism and romantic chamber music
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