Storytelling in Schubert’s “Der Erlkönig”, Essay Example

The way in which composers often incorporate narrative elements into musical themes is an important part of how music is used expressively.  By developing narrative or storytelling elements in a musical composition, a composer is able to generate a layer of meaning and expression that exists simultaneously with the expression of the elements of music such as melody, tempo, and theme. While it could be successfully argues that all musical compositions contain some level of narrative capacity, the use of narrative in specific musical compositions such as those works which are overtly based on novels, stories, or poems presents a special case for observation regarding how narrative helps to express theme. Even more importantly, the examination of musical scores that are based on literary themes often provide a good way in which to examine aspects of diversity and other social issues. A good example of this is the composition  Der Erlkönig (1815) by Schubert.

Schubert’s Der Erlkönig is based on a poem that was written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The poem is based on a German myth of a dangerous forest creature that haunts people and causes their deaths. The subject of the poem is that of as father and son being pursued by this forest monster, the Erlkonig, which is attempting to take the boy away to his death. In the poem, important aspects of German culture, particularly folk culture are transmitted. This same ideas are found in Schubert’s musical adaptation. The fusing of German cultural ideas, folk myth, and storytelling into the composition assures that the work becomes an important addition to the cultural lineage of the Germanic myth and social memes that lie within the symbols and evens of the story. That said, it is also important to not that the musical composition by Schubert also reflects a significant level of subjective interpretation and subjective inspiration. Schubert’s composition evokes the essence of the Goethe poem but also contributes novel effects and commentary on root themes as presented by the folk myth and poem.

Kenneth S. Whitten, in his study, Goethe and Schubert: The Unseen Bond. (1999) observes that, for Schubert, the composition of any musical work was as much a matter of subjective emotional response as intellectual conviction.  Whitton writes that there is no doubt “that Schubert set poems that awakened a musical response within him. A suitable poem evoked a wonderful response” (Whitton 87). This is certainly the case in regard to Der Erlkönig. As the following discussion will show, aspects of cultural diversity are manifested by Schubert’s subjective interpretation of traditional Germanic myth and storytelling. The way that Schubert injected a personal mode of expression to the traditional myth is an indication of how themes of social diversity and cultural identity can be successfully combined in the form of musical narration.

The connection betwen Goethe and Schubert is one of many complexities even  though the two men never met in life. Their respective biographies show much that is different. Whitton writes that  “Goethe, born in 1749 into the Europe of the Age of Enlightenment, was the son of well-to-do parents in Frankfurt-am-Main. When he died in Weimar in 1832 at the age of eighty-two years, he had become the most famous German of his day.” Meanwhile, by contrast, “Schubert, who was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1797, one of fourteen children of a modest schoolmaster. Comparatively unknown in his lifetime, Schubert became recognized […] as the master of […] the art song, the setting to music of an original poem” (Whitton 17). Additionally, Goethe went on to not only contribute a vast amount of German culture and literature, but to become one of the most important German writers adn cultural archivists who ever lived. As such, his work ranks very high in terms of cultural identity and value in German history. Furthermore, it is German culture and myth that stand at the center of both Goethe and Schubert’s expression of the Der Erlkönig myth.

To begin to see how the dynamic between Schubert’s storytelling in the musical form of  Der Erlkönig works in relation to the original poem, it is useful to study the score of the composition somewhat closely. There are both obvious and subtle correspondences between the original poem and Schubert’s musical score. For example, the basic tone and emotional feeling of the music is very much in keeping with the tone of danger and urgency that is present in the original poem. The way that the lyric of Schubert’s song manages to capture the essence of the poem is very important and it is best viewed by  studying individual passages of the song. One important, underlying factor is that both the original poem and Schubert’s song are based on a  linear mode of storytelling. The use of a linear mode of narrative enables an immediate ability to compare the two works, section by section, which, in turn, helps to bring out the cultural themes of diversity and tradition that are part of the overall theme of both works.

One of the key shared characteristics of the poem and the score is that both works preserve a traditional form of narrative which consists of: an opening, a rising conflict, a climax, and resolution. The use of the classical form helps to promote a sense of traditionalism in both the poem and the song. The meaning of the traditional form of narrative is that it is archetypal, something that emerges out of the collective cultural imagination of the German people. As such, both the poem and the musical composition can be understood as extensions of the mythic understanding of death that pervades Germanic culture. This is the way in which aspects of cultural diversity are preserved in both works. In fact, it is well within the bounds of reason to suggest that preserving these cultural archetypes is a reason for the creation of the poem and song by each of the artists respectively. In other words, some sense of cultural celebration (and preservation) exists in both the poem and song.

The idea of the collective unconscious is very important in understanding the resonance and meaning of the poem and song. As Leo Black points out in  Franz Schubert: Music and Belief  (2003) the idea of archetypes emerged from the work of the psychologist Carl Jung. These ideas merged the understanding of myth with concepts of living culture. Black notes that ” Jung was engaged with the anarchic, potentially life-giving forces of the collective unconscious,” (Black 52). Although Jungian psychology developed after both the poem and song were created, the idea that cultural myth acts as a life-giving force not only to individuals, but  to the societies it emerges from is quite significant and is one of the reasons that Schubert’s Der Erlkönig stands as an important musical composition. The articulation of the powerful German cultural archetypes in the song act as an expression of how the German culture regarded both life and death as well as familial bonds and ideas of metaphysical or spiritual influence.

As previously mentioned, Schubert tended to work with literary properties that exerted a personal emotional reaction on his part. That he felt a deep emotional reaction to Goethe’s “Der Erlkönig” is undoubtedly due in some part to the archetypal resonance that is offered by the symbols and events of the original story. Because the original story emerges out of German myth, both the poem and the musical composition must be regarded as growing directly our of Germanic culture and therefore representing important cultural ideals. The following close analysis of the song will show what some of the cultural ideals are in relation to the musical motifs. The discussion will also feature some references to the original poem to establish that the traditional cultural ideas are present in each work.

When the piece opens. a musical motif is introduced that is meant to suggest a tone of flight and urgency. The way that this theme is conveyed involves Schubert’s use of a “galloping” melody that is incorporated into an  arpeggiated rhythm. The chords are: G-Bflat, D, and E-flat. The melody comes and goes with a sense of passion and fury. In the first fifteen measures there is a sense of fury that culminates in the first lyric: “Who rides so late through night and wind?” (Schubert, m. 15). Now, the idea of music and story are merged in the mind of the listener Also, the scene is set for suspense as the audience as they begin to feel the same haunting sense of danger as the characters in the story.

The song is built with the use of four distinct voices, but they are all meant to be sung by the same performer. This places a greater emphasis on the ability of musical passages and themes to develop and express character and story. For example, the overall narrator of the story is given in the key of G, while the voice of the Erlkonig is B flat major. This provides a dramatic contrast betwen characters and helps to flesh out the archetypes and cultural ideals of the original Goethe poem and its underlying Germanic myths.  Another point of contrast is created with dramatic effect between the voices of the father and son, which are expressed in minor keys and the voice of the monster which is in a major key. The contrast betwen the major and minor keys is meant to show the contrast between the mortal and immortal realms. This basic symbolic connotation of the music is in keeping with the original cultural myth where the spirit of the Erlkönig, a folk myth that evolved from ideas of tribal animism such as wood-sprites and other elemental creatures.

Obviously, the array of voices offers a comment on the nature of both familial relationships and the relationship between the material world of human affairs and the supernatural realms beyond. The basic conflict of the poem emerges as the boy begins to see the veil between the spirit world and the material world dissolve. This is the way that death intrudes on life and, as such, the idea of the Erlkonig is an important folk-myth because the monster symbolically embodies the “bridge” between life and death. It is the unknown and mysterious realms of the spirits that influence important aspects of human life such as love and death. The uneasy coexistence between the  world of spirit and the world of matter is where much of life’s drama emerges.

This is shown by the way that Schubert chooses to shift the melodic motifs from one voice to another throughout the song. In measure seventy-two, for example, the song shifts to a chromatic scale in order to express fear and desperation on the boy’s behalf. In contrast, the Erlkonig responds in a major key with an inviting fast-paced melody. It si feels to the audience as though the specter of death is using a sweet melody to attract the boy and, by implication, all of humanity. Black mentions that, for Schubert, music provided a method of cultural preservation and identity as well as a medium of personal expression. He writes: “Not only does the music of his people provide the musical mother-earth for his entire creative work, but in its affirmation we find the expression of Schubert’s commitment to the simple man of the people and his natural, democratic rights in life.” (Black 13) This is an especially important point in regard to Der Erlkönig which preserves a pre-Christian folk tradition that allowed the German people to retain a connection to their deeper cultural and historical roots.

The composition of Der Erlkönig not only reveals the deep Germanic cultural traditions that inform the work’s subject matter, but the song preserves these cultural archetypes and ideals. As such, the work is important in terms of revealing diversity in cultural adn religious experience. The fact that Schubert found inspiration from Goethe’s poem which was itself inspired by folk traditions and animistic religions in the German tradition reveals the way in which music functions not only as a form of aesthetic and emotional expression, but as a method of cultural preservation and historical record.

Works Cited

Black, Leo. Franz Schubert: Music and Belief. Woodbridge, England: Boydell, 2003.

Schubert, Franz. Der Erlkonig.Opus 1 (D. 328) 1815.

Whitton, Kenneth S. Goethe and Schubert: The Unseen Bond. Portland, OR: Amadeus, 1999.