Assignment 5 - WAM and Nature: Analysing a Musical Work

 

This short essay will discuss the Lied (English: song), Erlkönig Op. 1, D 328 (English: Elf King) composed by Schubert in 1815. About Erlkönig: In brief, the singer plays four characters in Erlkönig, the Father, the Son, the Elf King, and the Narrator. The song begins with a father and his son crossing a dark forest, where the Elf King repeatedly lures and assails the child. At last, the father and the son finally break out from the forest and reach the village, but the son is later found dead. In this assignment, the F-minor transcription of a baritone singer with piano accompaniment will be used for analysis. 

(One of my favourite interpretations of this Lied, performed by Samuel Hasselhorn as the baritone singer and Renate Rohlfing as the pianist, you can hear clearly and distinguish the four characters; feel free to listen while reading through the analysis)

I will focus on analysing the depiction of the natural/surrounding environment for 1) the realistic world and 2) the imaginary world Erlkönig creates. In addition, I will also touch on how nature is represented at different time points as the story progresses. See the lyrics: 

From the lyrics in the first section, the keywords “night”, “wind”, and “he keeps him warm” all contribute to the impression of an eerie night with a cold wind. 

The music starts with an aggressively (Forte) fast tempo (Schnell) in F minor. The minor tonality and relatively low register playing of the piano further portray the artistic conception of “dark night”. Squared in purple, the triplets imitate the sound of the threatening wind as the horse carrying the father and the son runs through the forest. The whole environment foils the anxious feelings of a father holding his sick son in his arms. 

An extra point worth noticing is at the beat when the singer joins the music as the “narrator”. He enters on the fourth beat at the dominant chord instead of the first beat at the tonic chord, giving an extra sense that we, as listeners, are hearing a story which has been already going on and is in its full swing at the moment. 

Unlike the first section which is dark and ghostly, the second section, where the harmonic chord for “mist” is in A flat major tonic triad, provides warmth and comfort and is a strong contrast to the constant switching F minor tonic and dominant chords before. This is because the music accompaniment serves to not only depict the environment but also to express the “sense of safety” the son feels when the father comforts him. 

                                              

                                                  

Now, the story enters the “imaginary world”, where the Elf King lures the child. Looking into how the lyrics describe the natural surroundings of the imaginary world as having “many pretty flowers grow on the shore”, then quickly return to reality as the son cries out, and the father responds to him by saying “the wind is rustling in the withered leaves''. Focusing on the first phrase, the word “bunten”, meaning “growing” in English, Schubert did an ingenious move here by applying text painting. Text painting refers to the way the melody reflects the literal meaning of the lyrics. From the score, the stepwise motion of the melismatic word lively depicts the “growing” of lush flowers. Also, the major tonality - dominant seventh and A flat major chords give the impression of looking at a colourful “flower sea”. 

                                                  

The Elf King then makes the second attempt at bewitching the child. Looking at the child’s reaction, he says to his father “can you not see the Elf King’s daughters there in the darkness?”. From the score, a detailed dynamic marking, “decresc.”, meaning “gradually getting softer”, serves two functions, 1) to reflect and depict the gloomy environment (probably the darkness behind the woods) and 2) to mimic and reflect the boy's fear and fright at what he sees.

The last section talks about the final aggressive attempt of the Elf King on the boy, and the father arrives at the village with his dead son. The right hand’s very difficult right-hand repeated octave triplets finally stop as the father and son arrive at the village, this pause indicates 1) the horse has stopped, and 2) the environment has shifted from the ghastly forest to the warm (A flat major), calming village.