It has often been suggested that Erlkönig is a mistranslation from the original Danish elverkonge, which does mean “king of the elves.” The name translates literally from the German as “Alder King” rather than its common English translation, “Elf King” (which would be rendered as Elfenkönig in German).

In the original Scandinavian version of the tale, the antagonist was the Erlkönig‘s daughter rather than the Erlkönig himself the female elves or elvermøer sought to ensnare human beings to satisfy their desire, jealousy and lust for revenge. The poem has often been set to music with Franz Schubert’s rendition, his Opus 1 (D. 328), being the best known. Other notable settings are by members of Goethe’s circle, including the actress Corona Schröter (1782), Andreas Romberg (1793), Johann Friedrich Reichardt (1794) and Carl Friedrich Zelter (1797). Beethoven attempted to set it to music but abandoned the effort his sketch however was complete enough to be published in a completion by Reinhold Becker (1897). A few other nineteenth-century versions are those by Václav Tomášek (1815), Carl Loewe (1818) and Ludwig Spohr (1856, with obbligato violin) and Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst (Polyphonic Studies for Solo Violin). A 21st century example is pianist Marc-André Hamelin’s “Etude No.

8 (after Goethe)” for solo piano, based on “Erlkönig”. Schubert’s autograph of a simplified accompaniment to his “ Erlkönig“, one of several revisionsįranz Schubert composed his Lied, “ Erlkönig“, for solo voice and piano in 1815, setting text from the Goethe poem. Schubert revised the song three times before publishing his fourth version in 1821 as his Opus 1 it was cataloged by Otto Erich Deutsch as D. 328 in his 1951 catalog of Schubert’s works. The song was first performed in concert on December 1, 1820, at a private gathering in Vienna, and received its public premiere on March 7, 1821, at Vienna’s Theater am Kärntnertor. The four characters in the song – narrator, father, son, and the Erlking – are usually all sung by a single vocalist occasionally, however, the work is performed by four individual vocalists (or three, with one taking the parts of both the narrator and the Erlking). Schubert placed each character largely in a different vocal range, and each has his own rhythmic nuances in addition, most singers endeavor to use a different vocal coloration for each part. The Narrator lies in the middle range and is in minor.The Father lies in the low range and sings both in minor mode and major.The Son lies in a high range, also in minor.The Erlking’s vocal line, in major, undulates up and down to arpeggiated accompaniment: providing the only break from the ostinato bass triplets in the accompaniment until the boy’s death.The Erlking lines are typically sung in a softer dynamic.

Night of revenge translation