Who's behind the notes? Discover Franz Schubert: The Prolific Master of Romantic Melody
Franz Schubert's "Erlkönig" is a dramatic through-composed lied for voice and piano, setting a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It tells the haunting story of a father desperately riding through a stormy night, clutching his feverish son who is hallucinating and being seduced by the supernatural, malevolent Erlking. The music is renowned for its technical difficulty and its brilliant depiction of four distinct characters—the narrator, the father, the son, and the Erlking—through shifts in melody, harmony, and register. Composed when Schubert was only 18, it stands as one of the most famous art songs ever written.