Der Erlkönig for Brass Choir (Op.27, no.3)

This is from a set of independant programmatic pieces designated for brass choir. I'm posting the entire set, which consists of...
1: Coronation for Brass Choir (Op.27, no.1)
2: Todesmarsch for Brass Choir (... and Percussion)(Op.27, no.2)
3:Der Erlkönig for Brass Choir (Op.27, no.3)
Please check the other parts if you have the time.


Erlkönig (Erlkoenig) was a piece I composed for the May/June Monthly Competition. We were to compose a piece based on a text and only use one family of instruments. I of course am incurably in love with the brass family, so I used them. The text I based the piece off of is Der Erlkönig by Wolfgang von Göthe: Der Erlkoenig - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I wrote my piece such that the original (German) poem could be sung to it as if it were a lied. I may eventually make a reduction for piano and baritone (singer), but the piece is intended to convey the story without the need of sung lyrics. This was something new that I tried... trying to set a poem to music word by word. Each melody note roughly corresponds to a word or syllable in the poem. Like I said, it could be sung, that is how I wrote it, but as this is arranged for a large brass choir there will be no singing involved whatsoever. The music should tell the story alone. The following is an English translation of the lyrics:



Who rides so late through night and wind?
It is the father with his child.
He has the little one well in the arm
He holds him secure, he holds him warm.

"My son, why hide your face in fear?"
"See you not, Father, the Erl king?
The Erl king with crown and flowing cloak?"
"My son, it is a wisp of fog."

"You sweet child, come along with me!
Such wonderful games I'll play with you;
Many lovely flowers are at the shore,
My mother has many golden garments."

"My father, my father, and do you not hear,
What the Erl king quietly promises to me?"
"Be calm, stay calm, my child;
The wind is rustling the dry leaves."

"Won't you come along with me, my fine boy?
My daughters shall attend to you so nicely;
My daughters do their nightly dance,
And they will rock you and dance you and sing you to sleep."

"My father, my father, do you not see there,
Erl king's daughters in that dreary place?"
"My son, my son, I see it clearly:
It is the willow trees looking so grey."

"I love you; I'm charmed by your beautiful shape;
And if you are not willing, then I will use force."
"My father, my father, now he has taken hold of me!
Erl king has hurt me!"

The father shudders, he rides swiftly,
He holds in arm the groaning child,
He reaches the farmhouse with effort and urgency;
In his arms, the child was dead.


The meter of the English version is not quite identical to the original in German, I based my piece off the meter of the German version.

I originally wrote for 4 F horns, but the competition's constraints ended up limiting me to three. I substituted the 4th horn with an alto horn (also called a tenor horn,) which is in Eb and more of a saxhorn and akin to the baritone. I gave it independent lines here and there and mixed it with the harmony in the (French) horns in other places, moving it around vertically in the voicing occasionally for different colours. Also, in the F horns I retained the idea that horns 1 and 3 were high, and horns 2 and 4 were low, only the 4th horn is sitting this one out.

If you had visited the Wikipedia article, you may have noticed that there are works by Schubert and Loewe based on this same poem. I had not heard either of these works before writing this --- my own setting. I was introduced to the poem in 2nd year German class and enjoyed it so much I figured I would use it for the competition. After I had already started I went to Wikipedia to dig up anything more about it and that is when I found that I was not the first to set this to music. Like I said, I refrained from listening and reading about the other compositions until I finished this work in interest of making it as "me" as possible.

I could go on about how I depicted what in the poem in my piece, but I'll leave that to the listeners to figure out for themselves. One thing I will say is that as the story gets more frantic towards the end, I used more sophisticated harmony as I went on. What you may think of as inconsistencies (some rhythmic, some harmonic) may just be devices I used to maintain a sense of development in the story.

FILES: Op.27, Pieces for Brass Choir - Folder Shared from Box.net - Free Online File Storage