Erlkönig: Goethe and Schubert

All right, so we're going to get started. Listen up, kids. All right. Going in. Here we go, leader gang. Hi there, and welcome to Follow the Leader, the podcast where we talk all things art song related. With me, your host, Mandy Madrid-Sikic. If you've been keeping up with us, you know that the best way to show your support is to like, follow, download, subscribe, favorite, and whatever other suitable action you can enact upon our podcast.

You can find us on a variety of podcast platforms, Spotify, Stitcher, Anchor, Google Podcasts, Breaker, Radio Public, etc. The list goes on, but at the moment does not include iTunes. Hopefully we'll fix that soon. And most importantly, if you like what we're doing, tell your friends. And if you don't, tell your enemies, because any publicity is good publicity. Today, we are joined by guest vocalist...

Dr. Tyler Michael Anthony Reese. Ooh. Since our last recording, Tyler has finished his DMA at UC Santa Barbara and is sounding more beautiful and looking more scholarly than ever and is definitely not moving away from me now that he's finished with school and looking for jobs.

Please, if anyone from California is listening, give my friend a job so he doesn't have to move away. Also, I am beyond thrilled to have a very special guest co-host today, my dear friend, Ben Offringa. Can you please pronounce your last name for me?

Offringa. That's what I thought. But then I was like not sure if it was you didn't pronounce the G at all. And then I was like, what if I've been accenting the wrong syllable all these years? Most people do. It's like it's totally a thing. Do they say offringa? Most people say offringa. When it's really, it's a cascade. Right. Offringer. Yes. I've never heard you explain it like that. Friesian Dutch. I am stoked out of my mind to have you here then. I hope you guys are ready for this.

It's going to be an adventure. Yeah. So why don't you actually tell the listeners how we know each other, what kind of strange adventures we've been on. Oh, just so many strange adventures, Mandy. Well, it all started back in, what, 2012, 2013? We found ourselves in some choir. I'm going to say 2011. Oh. Yeah, actually, that makes sense. Yeah, 2011. Because we had just finished a spring tour in somewhere lame, and we were on a bus coming back, and we decided to be friends.

And the rest was just kind of like history after that. Yes. Performance after performance after performance. Yes. So I was the accompanist for the choir that you were singing in. Yes. And what sort of places have we been to? Oh, man. I mean, other than, like, every state west of the Mississippi, we're talking Lithuania. We're talking Russia. We're talking... Maybe those are the only ones we've been to.

Anyway, I think Lithuania and Russia are very... That was pretty cool, actually. That was pretty cool. And also very impressive on our friendship resume. Yes, yes. Well said. Good stuff. Thank you. So let's move on to the real reason we are here.

Later! Today's song is infamous indeed. One need merely speak its title and all the pianists in the room a shiver at thoughts of tendonitis that suddenly consume them. It certainly strikes fear in even the most accomplished of pianists and also presents some very tricky vocal issues. Not only is it infamous for its ferociously difficult piano part, but also for its tragic story.

one in which a father, fearing for the life of his ill-struck son, gallops faster and faster, fighting off ghostly apparitions while trying to hold off death to the very last moment. The song, of course, is Schubert's Erlkönig. with the text by Goethe. So, Ben, ever heard of this song? Yeah! No. Honestly, no. Although, I mean, something about it rings a bell. I can't put my finger on it, but...

Probably you know it because I can't stop talking about it. Probably like the last decade of my life. I've not been able to stop talking about this song because I love it so much. And listen. I know that a lot of the listeners might be thinking another Schubert song, another text by Goethe. And if that's the case, then... Leave. Yeah, exactly. I'm sorry, not sorry. I am a Schubert file through and through. But also, I do promise a word I totally made up. Schubert file.

I like that. Yeah, I think it works. I mean, it's on my Instagram bio, so it's official. But actually, we do have some other stuff coming up. I swear to God we're going to be doing some Schumann. Actually, I already have a Schumann episode. recorded I've just not done the editing because I think it's gonna be hard to edit but we also have some Mendelssohn some Brahms so guys just be patient and wait for the Lord's diamond anyway

So we're talking today about Schubert, about Goethe. My sources for this episode, I was consulting with Daryl Percival's fiction and folklore blog. I also found some stuff on Ethos Interrupted.

Norsemythology.org. Also, Tyler sent me a fascinating article today by Christopher Biggs titled... And that article was absolutely fascinating. So for any of you like true leader nerds out there, it was 21 pages of really, really dense, fascinating. stuff. Also, Dietrich Fischer-Diskau's book, Schubert, a biographical study of his songs. And as always, whenever I feature a song by Schubert, I have indeed consulted that great Schubert Bible, Graham Johnson's Schubert.

the complete songs volumes. Okay, so we learned a bit about Goethe in the last podcast. Ben, since you did your homework, anything in particular you care to share with our listeners about what you learned about Goethe, if anything was new? I mean, okay, so I come from kind of a pretty rich theatrical history background, studied a lot in college, and I mean, Goethe is just...

He's prolific. There's just so much of him everywhere. It's like you can't escape. Just in regards to that and how prolific he was, he was never satisfied. He never looked back and kind of sat on his laurels and said, wow, that's good. He like kept... striving for more. Every time he mastered one thing, he was on to the next thing, and he had such a variety of interests. That's why we have so, so much material from him. So, Goethe's dates, just as a quick recap.

1749 through 1832. End recap. Look, I'm trying to be succinct here. So in a nutshell... The song that we're talking about today, Erlkönig, is Goethe's poem. It's a tragic drama involving the mythical creature, the Earl King. So, who is the Earl King?

What does he do? Where is he from? And most importantly, does he know what a Schubert is? These are all great questions, and we will certainly be able to answer some, but there is actually a lot more confusion about him and the origination of his myth than I realized until I started studying for this episode.

So the myth of the Earl King can be traced loosely back to Scandinavian folklore. Now, listen closely here, because this thread we're going to follow is a bit loose. According to Scandinavian legend, elves were creatures of dread. No, Santa's workshop kind of beings. No, no. I'm thinking more like, you know, in Lord of the Rings, when I think.

Galadriel. When she gets all evil in front of her pool. She tells Frodo, shows Frodo what would happen to her if she had the ring. She goes full on reverse filter. Yes. I'm thinking kind of like that. So super terrifying. So the king of the... was said to dwell on old burial mounds, so hence his connection with death. In the original Scandinavian ballad, it's actually the Earl King's daughter. who is the mythical creature to be feared.

female elves in general were thought to hunt out human men to satisfy their desire, jealousy, lust for revenge. Why does this sound so familiar? Well, because that is a very typical creature, like the sirens. or the witch Lorelei, they're all that same kind of female mythical creature who roam the woods or sit on top of a rock trying to lure men, again, to satisfy some sort of lustful, revengeful...

thing um and typically we don't know specifically what they want revenge for but i can imagine all sorts of things a woman might revenge for um so In 1779, a writer slash philosopher slash literary critic named Johann Herder wrote a German version of the Scandinavian ballad, But... Instead of translating the Danish word Elfking, Ellerkonger, instead of translating that to the German, which would be Elfenkönig, he translated it to...

Erlkönig, which actually means the alder king. Alder as in like trees. Right. So Herder could potentially have been led astray by the fact that the Danish word Ella can be translated not only to elf. but also to alder tree. So some people think it was a blunder. Some people think that maybe he did that intentionally. There is also some lore around alder trees and like this aura that kind of surrounds them in any case.

that's what happened. What's interesting about Herder's ballad is that, so in 1779, the ballad that he wrote. The elf king is actually only mentioned as a point of reference so that we know who the daughter is. It is the daughter, just like in Scandinavian folklore, that stars as the villain. So... Even though...

Herder's text, this German translation that he wrote of it, even though that's not our song for today, I'm actually going to read you that poem that he wrote because it's super cool. And, well, I just really want to. Yes. This translation of Johann Herter's poem, The Earl King's Daughter, is by our favorite friend, Emily Isust.

from her wonderful life-saving website, LeaderNet. I actually emailed her for permission to use this text, and she emailed me back immediately. She was like, great. Yeah, she's absolutely just the best. Tyler's cheering for her in the background because she's really awesome.

about that. Thanks, Leader Queen. Yes. So, Emily Isust. Thank you. So, here's the translation of Johann Herter's poem. Lord Oluf rides late and far to summon his wedding guests. Elves are dancing on a green bank, and the Earl King's daughter offers him her hand. Welcome, Lord Oluf. Come, dance with me, and I will give you two golden spurs. I cannot dance. I do not wish to dance, for tomorrow is my wedding day.

Come closer, Lord Oluf. Come dance with me and I will give you a shirt of silk. A shirt of silk so white and fine. My mother bleached it with moonbeams. I may not dance. I do not wish to dance, for tomorrow is my wedding day. Come closer, Lord Oluf. Come dance with me, and I will give you a heap of gold. A heap of gold I would gladly take, but I cannot and should not dance with you. If you will not dance with me, Lord Oluf, then plague and sickness will follow you.

She dealt him a blow to the heart, and all his life he had never felt such pain. Then she heaved him up upon his horse. Ride home to your worthy lady then. And he came to the door of his house. His mother, trembling, stood before him. Tell me, my son, and tell me true, why are you so pale and sick? And should I not be pale and sick? I was in the Earl King's realm. Tell me, my son, so dear, what should I tell your bride?

Tell her that I rode to the wood just now to test my horse and hound. At early morning when day had dawned, his bride arrived with a wedding crowd. They poured mead and wine. Where is Lord Oluf, my bridegroom? Lord Oluf rode to the wood just now to test his horse and hound.

The bride lifted up the cloth scarlet red, and there lay Lord Oluf. He was dead. I realized halfway through that poem that it sounds a... Ton, like Per Gunt. Oh. Which, if listeners don't know, is this epic play that was written by Henrik Ibsen, like, 1800s. Okay. Anyway, I should mention, by the way, that Henrik Ibsen is Scandinavian.

Aha! Yes, sorry. Should have made that connection first. Instead of the elf king, it's the troll king. Troll king lives in his own realm. He has a daughter whom he is desperately trying to marry. But there's this whole thing with violent dancing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there is like a weird sense of parallel there. Sure, sure. Okay, so I actually have another surprise. The composer Karl Loewe set this poem to music.

And Tyler and I recorded it a few years ago. So we're going to play that recording and I will include that in the podcast. Oh, I make a pretty tragic mistake right at the beginning. I'm aware that it's there. There's nothing I can do about it. Ich darf nicht... So what'd you think? It's awesome. I mean, it's just like I was talking about earlier about like about textual painting. The story is just like you don't have to understand it. Yeah.

I mean, obviously, you know, the nuances of like, oh, he was whisked off to like an elf multiverse. Like, that's weird. But in terms of like the emotions that accompany it is more than clear. You're right. It's so imbued with this intense thing that's ineffable. We somehow understand. There are words there, but we somehow, even without them, understand the nature of what's going on. Okay. So, as of 1779, we have the OG Scandinavian legend of the Elf King and the Elf King's daughter.

But we also now, as we just heard, have Johann Herder's German version of the ballad of the Earl King's Daughter. Same people, same story-ish, different names, right? This is where Goethe enters the equation. Goethe had met Herder around 1770 and was inspired by Herder's literary criticism to continue developing his own literary career.

Herter became Goethe's teacher, and it is most likely from Herter himself that Goethe learned about the ballad and had the idea to make one of his own. But Goethe, being a bona fide genius... decides to change things up, and instead of focusing on the Earl King's daughter, decides to feature the Earl King himself as the evil antagonist.

So a fun fact that some of our more nerdy leader followers might be interested in. Goethe's text for the Earl King, which we'll be reading later, is actually part of his zingspiel, Die Fischerin. And a Zingspiel is like a form of German light opera. So it's like there's spoken dialogue and there's singing. In the Singspiel, the character of Dortchen sings this little ditty to herself as she waits for her father and her fiancé to return from fishing. So...

Why she didn't choose a happier story to dwell on, I don't know, but she didn't and song pianists everywhere. Curse her for it. Now, here is the great beauty of this text and why it appeals to those with a flair for drama. you will hear four different voices in the poem, that of the narrator, the father, the child, and then the Earl King himself.

These parts are spoken or sung by the same performer. So we are going to read Goethe's text now. This translation is done by, well, me. So if you have a problem with it...

See you never. Goethe's Erlkönig. Who rides so late through night and wind? It is the father with his child. He has the boy in his arms. He grasps him safely. He keeps him warm. My son, why do you hide your face so fearfully? Father, do you not see the Earl King? The Earl King with crown and train? My son, it is a misty streak. You lovely child, come, go with me. Beautiful games I will play with you. Many colorful flowers are on the shore. My mother has many golden garments.

my father my father do you not hear what the earl king so softly promises to me be quiet remain calm my child the dry leaves the wind rustles Fine boy, don't you want to go with me? My daughters shall wait on you. My daughters lead the nightly dance and will sway and dance and sing you to sleep. My father, my father, don't you see there the Earl King's daughters in that dark place? My son, I see it accurately. There shine the old willows so gray.

I love you. Your beautiful form arouses me. And if you are not willing, I will need to use force. My father, my father, he is grasping me. The Earl King has dealt me a great pain. The father is horrified. He rides fast. He holds in his arms the groaning child. He reaches the courtyard with effort and distress.

In his arms, the child was dead. Yikes. Heavy stuff, yeah? Yeah. Although, interestingly, there's an element to that story that... Again, reminds me of Per Gunt, which is about this whole like sisters thing. Because there's this whole concept of like, oh, yes, the sisters will like dance you to sleep. Oh, right, right. Well, I think that just specifically with the element of dancing, that's always been a sort of pagan. provoking evil or

Just invocation in general. Yes, yes. And dancing is often involved in that, whether it's to entice someone or to distract them. So yeah, that is interesting. A little personal anecdote. in grad school because like i said i've always been obsessed with this song in grad school i was taking an academic german class and my teacher

Gisela, God bless her. I love her so much. She asked us all to bring in an example of a German text that we'd be dealing with in our various lines of work. So in this class, it was all different courses of study. There was an anthropologist, and there was some scientist. Like, just totally random. Everyone needs German. Right. Everyone needs German because a lot of times in your different courses, you'd be needing to read a text and it would be in German.

So I, being on my lofty leader horse, bring in a copy of the Erl Koenig. The teacher takes the poem and she begins reading it in her gorgeous native German. I'm looking around in the classroom, and I'm feeling pretty pleased with myself for bringing in something so esoteric, so lofty. And I'm wondering if anyone else really understands the true nature of the poem, like I, an artistic intellectual.

do. So I'm feeling pretty smug as she's nearing the end of the poem and suddenly she stops before the last line and she can't finish. She starts crying. And she's apologizing for not being able to finish, but she says that the death of the child, like, it gets to her every time. First of all, I'm out.

so bad that I had made one of my favorite teachers of all time cry. And then second of all, I realized that I hadn't really, like, gotten it after all. Like, it's about the death of a child, and I was trying... To impress people. Ugh. So moving on.

to music in 1815. So the poem was published as part of the Zingspiel in 1782. But Schubert didn't come across until 1815. If you remember, actually, the first text that he set by Goethe was that of Gretchen am Spinnrade from Faust. And by this time, by the time he ran across his poem, he had already set... quite a few of Goethe's poems. The story goes that a group of friends went to Schubert's place and they found him excitedly reading the poem, for it seems he had just discovered it.

He immediately sat down and composed the song on the spot, without a piano there, for he didn't have one in his place at the time. Then later that evening, they all went over to the Stadtkonvikt, where Schubert went to school, to try it out. And they all praised it. Although it was kind of funny, there was this one part where they thought there was a mistake in it and that he didn't write it down accurately.

one of the group goes on to show like, no, no, no, this actually, this is very intentional. This really means a lot here. And we'll talk about that later. It was written in 1815, but wasn't published until six years later, actually, as Schubert's Opus One. And this is a work that he, this is really what catapulted him into fame. When people would write about him in journals and things, they would always...

referred to him as the composer of this song. That's how he got to be known. Wow. Yeah. So I'm actually going to move over to the piano so we can talk about some of the magic that Schubert worked. All right.

I'm now adequately set up at the piano. So, like we said before, this poem has four different people who speak. The narrator, the father, the son, and the Earl King. Schubert perceives there's actually another character, that of the horse, and he portrays the horse in the piano part with these thundering triplet octaves. From the poem we understand that the boy is sick. And the father is riding fast, as fast as he can to get him some help.

There's no missing the incessancy of these octaves underscoring the entire narrative with the desperation that pushes the father to ride his horse so very fast. Those octaves continue throughout the entire piece almost without exception. Hence the reasons for tendonitis and pianists fearing it. Because it's about, I think it's about five minutes long. And it just doesn't stop. And it's a real test of stamina.

Yeah, and I mean, there is a lot of discussion about how Schubert's piano back in the day, it was much lighter in action, so it didn't take quite as much weight in order to press down. um but there's not really a solution now for our modern day pianos and also Absolutely hilarious thing. He wrote an easier version for himself to play instead of being triplets. He wrote duplets. Interesting. Yeah.

Which doesn't have quite the same sense of urgency that the triplets make it really feel frantic. So that figure continues almost without... exception throughout the entire piece, but we'll get to the exception in a minute. The next thing that Schubert does is introduce this creeping motive in the bass. Graham Johnson, that great god of leader pianists, points out that this figure quote, punctuates the repeated octaves suggesting something dangerous that creeps up on you at night.

even if you are writing at full speed, end quote. Yeah, that's exactly what it sounds like. Yeah, you can tell from this there's something ominous trying to get us. You're two measures in and you can feel the dread. You can feel the impending danger. And that's what I think is so fascinating about both this and Gretchen that we talked about last time.

he sums up the entire like pathos of of the thing in the introduction just just with this little tiny tiny tiny little bit and it uh what's the word not perpetuates but it just uh permeates it permeates the entire piece Schubert nonchalantly displays his compositional prowess by setting the four speaking voices in different ways or different places in the voice so that we can hear four distinct people speaking i was saying before

That's what I was trying to get across in my dramatic reading without being cheesy. Not sure if I succeeded.

But in the song the narrator's part is set in the middle register. It's neither high nor low. Tyler can you sing the beginning of the narrator's part? When the father speaks, the vocal part is set low. We feel his attempt at courage. His attempt to stay grounded, though he's flying over the ground on horseback. We hear in his voice his attempt at protecting the boy. You want to sing Where the Father? Mein Sohn, was birgst du so bahn dein Gesicht?

When the boy speaks, it's set high in the voice. And as the song goes on, the boy's part gets higher and higher as it becomes more and more anxious and panicked about what the Earl King is saying and doing. Father. Tyler. Father Tyler. Tyler, you want to sing, let's sing through these three different Mein Vater entrances. So the first time the boy sings, cries out for his father, it sounds like this. Mein Vater, mein Vater.

And the next time he sings, it sounds like this. Then the last time the boy cries out for his father, it sounds like this. So you can hear it's literally the pitch is rising as he's getting more and more caught up in his heightened emotions.

Also, throughout the song, as the boy's crying out for his father, each time... he does that it's set against the piano in a minor second which is that one part that i said when they first played it like the first kind of run through of the song people thought like oh this pit this can't be right this has to be a mistake But actually the way that this dissonance is set, I think that we hear his pain and his panic.

And it gives us the sense that everything is not going to be okay. So when the piano comes in with the voice, it sounds like this. Ouch. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I mean, like physically speaking, that's exactly what this child is experiencing. Right. Right. It's very visceral, our reaction to that. And then finally, the fourth voice.

The Earl King speaks, and let me tell you, it's just about the creepiest thing you will hear in all of leader repertoire. The Earl King's part, like the narrator, is also set in the middle range of the voice, but... Schubert changes the piano accompaniment figure. At the first entrance of the Earl King, this is where he says... You lovely child, come, go with me. Very beautiful games we will play. The accompaniment changes from our octaves that we've had the whole time to this.

And this is why everyone is afraid of clowns. Yeah, exactly. To me, it has the feeling of like dancing a bit of something that's like trying to entertain a child, right?

You know, have you ever babysat and when the... parents are first going to leave and you're trying to distract the kid you're trying to do anything you can to like get them to like focus on you whether it's like dancing or like oh look at this like look at this thing i'm gonna show you i think that that's what he's doing here he's trying to enter

the child enough to like go with him and not cry from leaving his father also when he says these games I will play with you he has this little figure on the word play Like, it sounds like he's going to play with him. So this first bit of enticing doesn't work. And the child cries out for his father as we hear the octaves again thundering out in the piano part. So we get away from this Earl King playing around back to these.

After the boy cries out this first time for his father, the father trying to calm him says, you're not hearing anything. It's just the wind in the trees. So the Earl King takes this opportunity to speak again, this time inviting the child to come dance with his daughters. And the accompaniment figure changes once more. It goes from these triples.

So let's... to this. It's very evocative of the dance there, winding around, but also the vocal part that goes... around that goes with this it always reminds me of a slithering snake like he's trying to slither around and like ensnare the boy with his sweetness oh that was great alliteration did you hear that oh i'm so impressed with myself uh so tyler let's actually sing that part It sounds like a snake as he's trying to tell them about his daughter's dancing for him.

Willst feinere Knabe, du mit mir geh'n? Meine Töchter sollen dich warten schön. Meine Töchter führen den Mächtlichen rein und fliegen ins Hansen und segeln dich ein. So after this, once more, the boy cries out and asks his father if he sees the Earl King's daughters in that dark place. The father answers, It's really just some old willow trees. Now...

I highly recommend, I'm going to put this in my show notes. There's a video recording of Anne-Sophie Motte singing this song. And I recommend it for this moment. I've always kind of thought of the father whenever he says these things. Oh, it's just the wind. It's just the whatever. He just like really seems to be.

kind of not caring about his son's distress. But in Anne-Sophie's interpretation, I feel like she does such a good job of showing the father's vulnerability while at the same time portraying that like for the sake of his son. he can't show fear or panic. It's honestly, it's really fantastic. And like I said, I'll post a link to it in the show notes. I think she switches up some words here and there, but honestly, I don't even mind because.

Her interpretation is just so compelling. And it's an orchestration. So it's with orchestra instead of piano accompaniment. Oh, wow. That must make the triplet a little bit easier. Yeah. So this... now brings us to the final entrance of the Earl King, where he finally says what he means. He whispers, and it's pianissimo in the score. He whispers. I said that with a lisp. Did you hear that?

It's pianissimo. For some reason, I also imagine that this Earl King has a list. I don't know why, but he just seems like that kind of dude. He whispers at a pianissimo. He whispers, I love you. Your form arouses me. And if you are not willing, I will use force. This almost like pedophiliac moment is. The creepiest of the creepy and Schubert was brilliant in his use of dynamics here. He starts that out pianissimo.

Where the Earl King says, I love you. And it stays quiet until he says, and if you are not willing, I will use force. And the sudden fortissimo, fortissimo. isimo, that's triple forte, it's very frightening because the Earl King has finally revealed what his intention is. He's going to take this boy whether the boy wants to go or not.

This act of like reaching out and actually grabbing for the boy catapults us into the boy's last utterance and he cries out, my father, the Earl King has hurt me. And his voice is raised to its highest, most feverish pitch at this point. After that, the narrator brings the story to its thrilling climax. The narrator describes how the father, being horrified at the child's crying and groaning, rides faster and faster.

You can hear this in the piano part, and as if it hasn't been hard enough already, after six pages of relentless accompaniment... It gets faster. Exactly. Schubert writes double octaves. And then puts in a little cute little accelerando there. So we're literally racing to the end, hoping desperately to make it to help before the boy expires. Or the pianist, as the case may be. I'm starting to understand this analogy now. Expiration is inevitable.

So you can hear in the accompaniment the desperation of the last part of the father's journey. But I don't actually want to play that right now because I don't want to give away the final climax, and I'm going to save that for the actual performance. Again with Climax Talk. Oh, I know. It's everywhere. It's everywhere. It's all over, Leader. The father and the son, they finally arrive at the courtyard, which sounds a bit like this.

I told you he'd start singing. He always sings this. Oh, poor little Sheltie. Bye, czar. Okay. So I think I said it sounds a bit like this. After this arrival, Schubert sets the final line as a recit. The accompaniment stops and it's like time itself has stopped as the father looks to see his child dead in his arms.

I don't know why I want to smile. Whenever I'm talking about something tragic, I'm like... Someone listens to too much of my favorite murder. I'm not actually happy someone's dead. I used to do that. When I was growing up and my mom would get mad at me or yell at me, I would start smiling. What is that? That's the sign of a psychopath, I think. There are many cultures that smile and laugh when they feel incredibly either physically uncomfortable. Anyway, it's a whole thing.

Okay, fascinating. We must discuss more later. We must discuss this offline. Okay, so we're going to perform it for you now. I am so excited. Are you? I did have like one little question. Yeah. For you. Yes. And it's mostly related to the text, but I wonder how you feel about the Earl King saying, I love you. Yeah.

And that, I mean, you know, pedophilia aside with the like, oh, your figure arouses me. Yes. So there's been much discussion on this. And actually, if you, anyone who's interested, go online and read Christopher Gibbs. article. It's called, Comge mit mir, the Schubert's Uncurly? Uncurly! Uncanny Earl King. So there is some speculation about, like, what is actually meant by this. I personally...

To me, what makes sense is that this creature of the Earl King, he loves the boy for what the boy can help him accomplish. The Earl King's function is to take children to their death. to take them over the threshold from life into death. And that's what gives him purpose. The boy is helping him live out that fulfillment. And that's why the Earl King loves him.

It's just because it gives him purpose. Like, come with me. You are why I'm here. A fine little boy like you, that's exactly why an Earl King like me exists to take you across a threshold. And would you say that that exists? inside of this greater mythology? Or is this kind of a Goethe-Schubert interpretation where there's this duality here where it's not just like myth anymore. It's a tale of this childhood.

in in life and now in in experiencing his own death is starting to interpret it that way so in the sense that this this father is saying hey this is not the earl king this is the wind these are willows not his daughters Maybe he's right, you know, and there is this and maybe this is probably too modern interpretation here, but like.

It's both. It's what the child sees in his death and what the father experiences, which is that this is not actually happening. This is just how this boy is crossing over because this is how... This is the closest thing he gets to interpreting his own death. Yeah, I really like that. I think I've not really thought so much about... The father being aware of how the son is processing his own death, I've always sort of thought of it more in the romantic kind of terms.

Oh, no. If he's hallucinating to the point where he sees the Earl King, that's bad news. My son is going to die. Right. And you're probably right. Like, I mean, this is this is inherently like these are romantic pieces. You know what I mean? Right. But.

I do like that idea of there being another layer underneath that. And it's so deeply psychological. Like this is so much coming from like a modern interpretation of like, oh, this is a psychology of mental interpretation. Well, and we've actually, there's been... a couple of different like

polarizing shifts that's happened um you know there's a a thought of literary critique where you shouldn't be over emotional you shouldn't be over romantic with it it should just kind of speak for itself and not be like sort of over interpreted or overworked, but that's not how things were seen when this was first written. Tyler, what do you have to say about that? Do you want to grab the mic for a second? I'm sure you have some thoughts on it. Yeah, I do, because, I mean...

There's a lot of text painting in Schubert's setting and stuff. It's so overly dramatic, and you know exactly what's going on at all times. But there were a lot of people who critiqued.

um Schubert's setting because like even just 20 or 30 years after it was written um because if you read Goethe's poem like by itself it doesn't necessarily have this over exaggerated like tense like thing from the very start of it it's more like mysterious and and like misty hazy like it's a little bit um more cerebral i guess you could say yeah because it's

Presented without emotion, really. It's sort of the music that I think they were saying that gives it the emotion. But then other people were saying that, well, Schubert got the emotion. because it's in the poem. I don't know if that answers your question specifically about the I love you. I think that it's probably too much to read into it that it's like true pedophilia. Oh, no, no, no. Absolutely. Like, that's not that's not what I was positing. But I like how you I like.

The interpretation that this is what gives him life. This is his purpose. This is his destiny. This is the only thing he does. Also, I think that kind of playing around with the idea, that's a bit... there is a bit of that sexual tension underlying helps the vocalist and pianist to achieve maybe a different color than would be if they hadn't contemplated that at all. Like there's a slight sense of pleasure.

Yeah. From that taking of the life. And whether or not that is shown through the piano and the voice intentionally. The audience picks up on that. Yeah. And that sense of pleasure in this horrible situation is akin to the minor second that you referenced earlier. Yeah.

huge clash in your head of this cannot be happening. Well, and actually, that's another great. Everyone go read that article by Christopher Gibbs. The whole last... page was about that like the duality of these things that shouldn't go together the pleasure with the pain like these are things that we can't kind of reconcile in our mind but it's fascinating that

They're both here. They exist. So yeah, everyone go read that article. But one of the most fascinating things goes along with your question exactly. It's like, why did he choose to make the Earl King?

male or male oriented in this one traditionally and in the scandinavian folklore it's always been about the daughters luring these men in to kill them and stuff so there is that element like no one can really say why or what it means for sure but there is that element of like slightly homoerotic tension as well as like obviously the the tension of death in there as well so yeah And also, and we haven't really touched on this, but the mention of his mother. Oh, yeah.

What is that? I don't know about that from mythology, from the legend. I don't know why he says my mother has many... golden garments what did you say my mother is like so many golden garments is this an appeal to like to like the earl king's own sense of like in his trickery is this his own appeal to to this child sense of humanity in that like, oh, I have a mom too. Don't you love your mom? Potentially. I could also maybe see it.

If this child is this sick to the point of death, maybe he has come from not a great situation. Maybe he doesn't have a ton of money. Maybe he hasn't had the means by which to stay healthy. Golden garments might sound really great to a kid who grew up poor. Yes.

Let me be comfortable. Let me wear gold. Or maybe he has neither. Neither a mother nor gold, which is why. Totally could be. But this is why I love Leader because there's so many possibilities. We can have so much backstory and being able to. to come up with this backstory whether or not it's in the text or in the music it's going to help you paint it it helps us paint it it helps us be more convincing in our performance which we should know excellent segue

I love when I do that. Like a master. All right.

What did you think? I need a moment to collect my thoughts a little bit. Wow. And that was like truly a performance, not like him singing a song. Yeah. It's like...

planned out but at the same time in the moment you just have to kind of go with the passion exactly you know like each time it's a tiny bit different um mistakes not withstanding no and that's like the beauty of live performance you know what i mean is that like it's it's never the same Yeah. Perfectly. This one's kind of funny for me because I love the song so very much and I love doing live performances of it.

I was kind of cursing myself a little bit for deciding to do it on the podcast because it's just so exposing. I mean... oh and hilariously at the beginning of this performance my page was on the wrong one and so i had to like reach up and turn back a page because i looked on to the next page i was supposed to be playing and it was the wrong one But you were 100% right about the force moment. Oh, yeah. It changes everything. And even when you've been hearing this intense galloping refrain for...

I mean, like, what, like six, seven pages at this point. It takes on a completely different character the moment he switches. Totally. And it stops. I mean, like, even though there is this sense of panic the whole time, this is like, it's happening. It's now. Yeah. He touched me. I'm dead. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. We feel that that particular climax. and the horror of it.

Yeah, literal heart. Like our hearts are pounding. I think we literally said those same things in the last podcast. But it's true, especially at the end of this one. It's a physical toll. It's an emotional toll by the time we reach that climax. And it's... It's just... Let loose. Yes. Everything. Well, I think with that, unless you have any other closing comments, any other thoughts that are in your mind? I think I need a nap after this. I'm just...

As long as nothing's reaching for me in my dreams. I know. Sorry for the nightmares you might have tonight. I'm on my way home. Okay, so this is hilarious. Brian and I were riding bikes yesterday around town, and I had that little lick in my head, and I was like... But for some reason, it kept coming out major. And I was like, why can't I sing it in minor? It was really funny. So yeah, it is a little earworm that'll stick with you. Well, thank you, Ben. I cannot thank you enough for being here.

co-hosting guests, co-hosting. You were brilliant. You were amazing. We'll definitely have you on again. Nothing to do with me. This is all Earl Koenig. Did I say that right? No, I totally messed it up. It was pretty close, pretty close. Okay, thank you. So we will definitely have to have you on again, Tyler. Thank you for going on this crazy Errol Koenig journey with me.

Guys, this has been a journey like years in the making. Don't get me too emotional with Tyler about to possibly move away, but you're right. It has been. All right. time for our nerdiness to come to a close um listeners out there we thank you for joining us today thanks for going on this crazy leader journey with us and we will catch y'all next time bye bye