Sunday Classics preview: Before The Youth's Magic Horn, there was Goethe with his Erl King

A postcard reproduction of Moritz von Schwind's painting "Erlkönig"

"[Achim von] Arnim [co-creator with Clemens Brentano of the anthology Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn)] was influenced by the earlier writings of Goethe and Herder, from which he learned to appreciate the beauties of German traditional legends and folk songs."

-- Wikipedia

by Ken

We're dabbling in the incredible range of riches Gustav Mahler found in Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano's three-volume anthology of German folk poetry Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn), and will do some more of that tomorrow. Last night we heard "Das irdische Leben" ("Earthly Life"), and in tomorrow's main post we're going to return to the connection between it and the Wunderhorn poem and song with which it's inevitably paired, "Das himmlische Leben" ("Heavenly Life"), which Mahler used for the fourth movement of his Fourth Symphony.

I note that I didn't say anything last night about the performances we heard of "Das irdische Leben." For me, Christa Ludwig and Maureen Forrester are the most cherishable of all Mahler singers, and beautifully complementary, Ludwig being a classic lyric mezzo and Forrester an authentic contralto, which automatically lends different emphases to their performances of this music. I thought it would be interesting to hear a piano-accompanied version, and so plugged in Ludwig's gorgeous 1959 recording with Gerald Moore, with the voice at its absolute easiest and most effortlessly produced. This was a little unfair, because the later recording she made of the Wunderhorn songs that Mahler orchestrated, with her then-husband, bass-baritone Walter Berry, and the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein, is simply one of the great recordings of all time. (Ludwig and Berry also recorded the Wunderhorn songs with Maestro Lenny at the keyboard.) Barring unforeseen developments, we're going to hear the performance of "Das irdische Leben" from that recording in tomorrow's main post.

Even with Ludwig and Forrester anchoring our coverage of "Das irdische Leben," Janet Baker's quieter performance seemed to heartbreakingly beautiful to leave out. And then, while the song is almost always sung by women, it's taken on in Riccardo Chailly's Des Knaben Wunderhorn recording by the fine baritone Matthias Goerne, and I thought it would be interesting to hear a male performance.

I did mention last night that "Das irdische Leben" for me always recalls one of Schubert's best-known songs, the Goethe setting "Erlkönig." Obviously they're both songs in which a child repeatedly importunes a parent for life-saving assistance and finally can't be saved. In "Earthly Life," it's simply hunger eating at the poor little one. In "Erlkönig," it's the child-snatching Erl King.

Those German Romantics loved the supernatural, and there's no more famous example than the mysterious Erl King who here lures the child to his doom. Those of us less given to supernatural explanations are apt to assume that the boy is dangerously ill and hallucinating, and his father understands he's racing against time to save him. We start with my very favorite recording of this song, by the great Ukrainian-born bass Alexander Kipnis (1891-1978; and by the way father of the outstanding American harpsichordist and music critic Igor Kipnis, 1930-2002).


Alexander Kipnis, bass; Gerald Moore, piano. HMV/EMI, recorded Oct. 20, 1936. (Plus a second Kipnis performance, from a 1936 Stockholm broadcast, and a Kipnis interview excerpt.)

German text by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Who rides so late through night and wind?

It is the father with his child.

He has the boy well in his arm
.
He holds him safely, he keeps him warm.



"My son, why do you hide your face so anxiously?"

"Father, do you not see the Erl King?

The Erl King with crown and tail?"

"My son, it's a wisp of fog."



"You lovely child, come, go with me!

Many a beautiful game I'll play with you;

Many colourful flowers are on the shore,

My mother has many golden robes."



"My father, my father, and don't you hear

What Erl King is quietly promising me?"

"Be calm, stay calm, my child;

The wind is rustling through withered leaves."



"Do you want to come with me, dear boy?

My daughters shall wait on you fine;

My daughters will lead the nightly dance,

And rock and dance and sing you to sleep."



"My father, my father, and don't you see there

Erl King's daughters in the gloomy place?"

"My son, my son, I see it clearly:

The old willows they shimmer so grey."



"I love you, your beautiful form entices me;

And if you're not willing, I shall use force."

"My father, my father, he's grabbing me now!

Erl King has done me some harm!"



The father shudders; he swiftly rides on,

He holds the moaning child in his arms,

is hardly able to reach his farm;

In his arms, the child was dead.

I wonder how many singers the amazing Gerald Moore (1899-1987, retired 1972) played "Erlkönig" with. Here are three strikingly different performances he gave over a more than 15-year period -- the last made more than 30 years after his recording with Alexander Kipnis -- with the dominant Lieder singer of the 20th century, baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (born 1925, and apparently finally retired).


Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Gerald Moore, piano. EMI, recorded 1951


Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Gerald Moore, piano. EMI, recorded live at the Salzburg Festival, August 1963


Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, baritone; Gerald Moore, piano. DG, recorded 1966-68. (From the massive Schubert series Fischer-Dieskau and Moore recorded, originally released in three LP and then three CD volumes, encompassing the three song cycles and all the solo songs that could reasonably be sung by a man. It's all been repackaged in a handy 21-CD set,which includes a lot of the best reproductions we have of Gerald Moore's piano playing -- not to mention the best Winterreise, and for that matter "Erlkönig," I ever heard Fischer-Dieskau sing.)

Here are two current-generation baritones, Wolfgang Holzmair (born 1952) and Matthias Goerne (born 1967).


Wolfgang Holzmair, baritone; Gérard Wyss, piano. Tudor, recorded May 1992


Matthias Goerne, baritone; Andreas Haefliger, piano. Decca, recorded May 1996

Although we tend to think of "Erlkönig" as a male song, female recitalists with a flair for the dramatic have always loved it too. Here's the younger Christa Ludwig (born 1928, retired 1994).


Christa Ludwig, mezzo-soprano; Geoffrey Parsons, piano. EMI, recorded November 1961

Finally, we hear a "dramatized" "Erlkönig," from Hyperion's vocally variable but nevertheless invalulable 37-CD traversal of (gasp!) the complete Schubert songs. As I mentioned last night, pianist Graham Johnson served as music director and annotator as well as accompanist for this monumental series, and he points out in his Vol. 24 booklet note that this "dramatization" is a kind of performance that Schubert himself is known to have participated in at his "Schubertiade" evenings.


John Mark Ainsley (t), narrator and Erlkönig; Michael George (bs), the father; Christine Schäfer (s), the child; Graham Johnson, piano. Hyperion Schubert Lieder Vol. 24, recorded, recorded 1993-94

It's a shame the singing isn't better, which contributes to the performance's air of kitsch. Of course this "specialty" version was never going to be a "normal" performance of "Erlkönig," and that's fine. Note how differently Graham Johnson at the keyboard hears the song in Hyperion's "regular" "Erlkönig," on a CD's worth of Schubert songs sung by mezzo Sarah Walker (born 1943).


Sarah Walker, mezzo-soprano; Graham Johnson, piano. Hyperion Schubert Lieder Vol. 8, recorded May 1989


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