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Updated: June 6, 2025
Sometimes this folk-tone is a question of certain technical tricks, such as the abrupt shift of scene, repetition, varying series of scenes or words, archaized language; but it is just as often in the mood which Uhland throws over the whole. He thus can catch the inner form and essential mood of the popular ballad in a way that not even Goethe does in his Erlking.
Opposite my writing-table hangs a quaint German picture, illustrating Goethe's ballad of the Erlking, in which the whole wild pathos of the story is compressed into one supreme moment; we see the fearful, half-gliding rush of the Erlking, his long, spectral arms outstretched to grasp the child, the frantic gallop of the horse, the alarmed father clasping his darling to his bosom in convulsive embrace, the siren-like elves hovering overhead, to lure the little soul with their weird harps.
And readers of recent French literature cannot fail to remember Erokmann-Chatrian's terrible story of the wild huntsman Vittikab, and how he sped through the forest, carrying away a young girl's soul. Thus, as Tannhauser is the Northern Ulysses, so is Goethe's Erlking none other than the Piper of Hamelin.
Seeing that the publishers were unwilling to print the work of an unknown musician, two of Schubert's friends undertook to publish the "Erlking," one of his first songs, at their own risk. At the Sonnleithner mansion, where musicals were regularly held, the "Erlking" had been much applauded, and when it was decided to have it published, the decision was announced.
If he could have had a dear companion to look after his material needs and share his aims and aspirations, his earthly life might have been prolonged for many a year. With no one to advise him, and often pressed with hunger and poverty, he was induced to sell the copyrights of twelve of his best songs, including the "Erlking" and the "Wanderer," for a sum equal to about four hundred dollars.
But in the boy's brain the Erlking has already raised his enticing whisper. The still, small voice, as though coming from another world, promises the child golden raiment, flowers, and games. The Erlking excites the thoughts of the fever-sick boy. The three enticements must be sung very rapidly, without any interruption of the breath.
Uhland's ballads and romances vary greatly in quality; none, perhaps, has the grandiose dramatic and ethical note of Schiller's The Cranes of Ibycus and none the power of revealing the hidden forces of nature in anthropomorphic and demoniac form as Goethe does in his Erlking and The Fisher.
A hundred copies were at once subscribed for, and with this encouragement the engraving of the "Erlking" and "Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel" was forthwith begun. The pieces were sold by the music publishers on commission.
"I like the 'Singer," said Paul, "and I like the 'Erlking, but when my father read it aloud to us last winter my little sister crept under the sofa. She was afraid." By this time they had reached the old house, and it was a delight to the triplets to see the rooms in which he had played when a boy like them.
Ernst often came to hear me play her late husband's music, and as a parting gift presented me with his beautiful 'Tourte' bow, and an autographed copy of the first edition of Ernst's transcription for solo violin of Schubert's 'Erlking. It is so incredibly difficult to play with proper balance of melody and accompaniment I never heard any one but Kubelik play it that it is almost impossible.
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