The listening selections for this week include the art song “The Erlking” by Franz Schubert. This song demonstrates some popular themes of the Romantic era – death, suffering, the supernatural. This is also an excellent example of through-composed form, in which each stanza of a poem is set to different music. Through-composed form is one of two main forms used for Romantic art songs. (In the other form – strophic form – the composer uses the same music for each stanza.) In the vocal music guide, the author explains the musical techniques Schubert uses in “The Erlking” to enhance the story – the triplet rhythm of the piano accompaniment suggesting the gallop of the horse; the high minor melodies of the boy’s words; the lower pitches for the father; the enticing major melodies of the Erlking. After listening to this song (while following the vocal music guide), please address the following questions: Schubert’s use of through-composed form (rather than strophic form) allowed the composer the freedom to set each character’s words to different music. Do you think this is effective? Does it help the listener follow the story? Would the story and characters have been less clear if the composer had used strophic form instead? Due to its repetitive nature, it is rather easy to achieve unity with strophic form. This is not always the case for through-composed form. Do you feel “The Erlking” sounds unified? Does it seem to be a complete, coherent whole? If so, how is this achieved? The author mentions how the triplet rhythm in the piano accompaniment helps to unify the piece. Is this all? Do you hear any other musical aspects that help to unify the piece? Or, do you feel Schubert relies primarily on the story in the text to achieve unity? If so, is this enough? In “The Erlking,” not only does the singer convey a story, he also portrays several different characters. Can you think of any popular songs that do the same thing? If so, does the popular song contain different melodies for each character? Or, is it basically the same melody throughout (strophic form)? I WILL ATTACH THE VOCAL MUSIC GUIDE 🙂
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