Program Notes

 

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Gretchen am Spinnrade by FRANZ SCHUBERT (1875–1937), transcribed by FRANZ LISZT (1811-1886)

 

Franz Schubert wrote “Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel” for voice and piano in 1814. The song is based on a poem from Goethe’s Faust, and it is a study in extremes, both literal and metaphorical. Obsession lies at its crux, and conflict reigns: between moral innocence and erotic awakening; the resistance of temptation and the surrendering to an all-consuming passion; fearful resignation and willful desire; good and evil; destruction and renewal. Ultimately this is a song of transformation.

 

The words of the poem are heavy with yearning, unrest, torment, and are shadowed by Gretchen’s ineluctable fate (translated here from Goethe’s original German text):

 

My heart is heavy,
my peace of mind is gone;
I’ll never get it back,
never get it back.

 

Any place without him
is the grave to me;
the whole world
is soured for me;

 

my poor head
is crazed,
my poor mind
is shattered.

 

If I look out the window,
it’s only for him;
if I go outdoors,
it’s only in hopes of seeing him.

 

His fine gait,
his noble figure,
the smile on his lips,
the power in his eyes,

 

and the magical flow
of his speech,
the pressure of his hands,
and oh, his kiss!

 

My heart yearns
for him;
oh, if I could embrace him
and hold him,

 

and kiss him
as I would like to;
if I could die kissing him!

 

The high level of compositional sophistication is epitomized by the spinning wheel motif. The centrifugal motion of the unifying figure mirrors the unyielding cycle of Gretchen’s desire. It also creates an agitated and haunting atmosphere as it undulates beneath the swelling waves of Gretchen’s emotions. The combination of Gretchen’s yearning melody with the chiaroscuro-like harmonic shifts and relentless piano figurations fully capture the drama of the text.

 

The music relentlessly pushes onward to mirror Gretchen’s hallucinatory state until it rises to a B-flat in the vocal line, at which the music and wheel motion stops at the pivotal words “Sein Küss” (“his kiss”). After this standstill, Gretchen catches her breath and reluctantly resumes her spinning. However, her remembrances of Faust persist, and the second part of the song depicts Gretchen’s desperate cry for love and even death.

 

©2008 Elizabeth Joy Roe. All rights reserved.