Beethoven was among many composers who based a song on Goethe’s 1782 poem “Erlkönig” (Elf King). The poem dramatizes a frantic nighttime horseback ride by a father and son. The boy sees the Elf King chasing them, but the father is blind to the danger until there’s no denying it.
One of the appeals in setting Goethe’s “Erlkönig” to music is dealing with the four voices in the poem — a narrator, the terrified son, the reassuring father, and perhaps most challengingly, the seductive enticing Elf King: “Will you not come with me, my fine boy?”
The most famous musical setting of Goethe’s “Erlkönig” is by Franz Schubert, begun when he was a teenager, and then later revised and published as his Opus 1 in 1821. But Schubert wasn’t even born when Beethoven tried setting the poem, probably in Prague in early 1796.
Beethoven left behind only sketches of his musical setting of Goethe’s “Erlkönig,” but they apparently reveal Beethoven’s intentions, and the song has been completed several times, most notably in 1897 by German violin virtuoso and composer Reinhold Becker.
#Beethoven250 Day 74
“Erlkönig” (WoO 131), 1796
This recording of Reinhold Becker’s completion of Beethoven’s “Erkönig” is accompanied by an animated score and an English translation.
#Beethoven250 Day 74
“Erlkönig” (WoO 131), 1796
It’s unfortunate that this rare live performance of Beethoven’s “Erlkönig” was recorded under less than optimum conditions.
#Beethoven250 Day 74
“Erlkönig” (WoO 131), 1796
A sextet of singers in Göttingen, Germany perform an a cappella arrangement of Beethoven’s “Erlkönig.”
Around 1908, the Becker completion of Beethoven’s “Erkönig” was orchestrated by none other than Béla Bartók. This orchestration was only discovered in the 1960s, as discussed in “The Art of the Third Guess: Beethoven to Becker to Bartók”.