# Georg Friedrich Haas argues Schubert's Erlkönig depicts a father raping his son



## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Strange Dissonance


Composer Georg Friedrich Haas analyzes Schubert's setting of the text of Erlkönig—"one of the most horrifying poems in all of world literature."




van-magazine.com


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

Great article by a great composer. Thanks for sharing! I should further look into other Haas' writings


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

goodness



> There is a sexual image in the accompanying right-hand triplet figure. Imagine the right hand, playing the constant up-and-down vibrations of Schubert's triplets, taken away from the keyboard and rotated 90 degrees so that the thumb is facing away from the body; now imagine this same motion performed on the *****. It is the motion of ************. Here, Schubert pushes his naturalism to its limits. If we assume that the perpetrator was right-handed, which he very likely was (85 percent of people are), then he would have masturbated with his right hand. And the way Schubert builds his song to its climax is analogous to the male orgasm.


Is it relevant to mention here Haas's interest in BDSM?


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Is it relevant to mention here Haas's interest in BDSM?


Well, yes, of course. It's a controversial take, that's why it's interesting.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

hammeredklavier said:


> Georg Friedrich Haas argues Schubert's Erlkönig depicts a father raping his son


I think you've misread the article. He does not claim that Erlkönig depicts a father raping his son. He claims that it is one of many possible readings of the work.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I think Haas is simply wrong with the claim that the "child's suffering" gets less space in the poem than the Erlking or the father.
The first and last (8) stanza are told by a narrator. Of the six remaining stanzas 2, 4 and 6 are dialogues between father and child with the boy describing his visions and the father soothing him by giving natural explanations. 3 and 5 are the seductive offers of the Erlking and 7 has the touch/rape/killing blow of the Erlking and the desperate cry of the boy. So the balance between the 3 persons is not that skewed. Father: 6 verses, boy: 8, Erlking: 10. But the Erlking speaks only 3 times, the others 4 times each and the King does not figure in the two framing stanzas that are about father and child.

There seem at least three interpretations of the poem. Literally as a ghost story, i.e. the boy is correct but the father just cannot see the ghost. Naturalistically with the sick boy in a feverish dream who sees ghosts in his final delirium (but they are just the nocturnal phenomena the father claims them to be). And finally with the kind of Freudian subtext suggested by Haas.

I think the last one is dubious although there is no doubt that the final verses of the Erlking clearly contain language used for sexual attraction and violence, even for modern German speakers. 

But this is not that unusual for this kind of romantic ballads about encounters with elves or other supernatural creatures. If they can't seduce a mortal ("Tom der Reimer", Loewe op.135a), they'll abduct or kill (Loewe op.2/2 "Erlkönigs Tochter" (Herder), even a fleeting encounter with them is ominous ("Neue Liebe" (Heine) from Mendelsohn's op.19).


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> I think you've misread the article. He does not claim that Erlkönig depicts a father raping his son. He claims that it is one of many possible readings of the work.


I don't think the above is correct.

Haas writes:

"There is strong evidence that the poem is describing the rape of a child-from the perspective of the perpetrator".


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

After reading this thread, and some of the article, my interest in/respect of G.F. Haas has plummeted.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I think the textual evidence for "from the perspective of the perpetrator" is very slim. It's in 3rd person perspective overall and the whole point of the dialogues are the differing perpectives of the father and the child. To somehow connect the poem/song somehow with child molestation is, as I said, rather obvious from the last verses of the Erlking. (I don't think that this language is strong enough to tell *against* the naturalist or supernatural readings.)
But one interpretation I read is that the abused child splits the abuser into the loving father and the evil abusive Erlking, so it was more plausible that the poem is told from this perspective because otherwise we don't get this split. Unless one supposes that the father copes with his crime by splitting himself into evil Erlking and loving father.

(I can't play the piano but the claim that accompaniment is like w*nking turned by 90 degrees seems not plausible at all. Of course kinky Haas might have a special technique of his own here )


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Bulldog said:


> I don't think the above is correct.
> 
> Haas writes:
> 
> "There is strong evidence that the poem is describing the rape of a child-from the perspective of the perpetrator".


Just a moment of careless writing I suspect - best to give him the benefit of the doubt. The language of "evidence", with its connotations of "truth", is inappropriate in the context of hermeneutics.

He also says "And while there are many possible poetic interpretations of these moments, they often fall short of explaining why Schubert departed so far from the style of his time." which is clearly more guarded, and may even be justifiable.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

'He zips up his fly, completing the act." Zippers hadn't been invented yet. 

Another moment of careless writing. I mean, if anyone is keeping count. (Or else it's just proof that I read the article.)


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> After reading this thread, and some of the article, my interest in/respect of G.F. Haas has plummeted.


My takeaway is that people are too being too stiff, poetic license man


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> My takeaway is that people are too being too stiff, poetic license man


Interesting choice of word. 

To me it is a gratuitously ugly analysis of the work, and one I wish I had never known about.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Amazing what images some people’s minds conjure up! Says more about Mr Haas than Schubert.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> Interesting choice of word.
> 
> To me it is a gratuitously ugly analysis of the work, and one I wish I had never known about.


Good catch :lol: I'd much rather read short, concise and peculiar analyses like these, rather than going down the same old trodden road again


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> Good catch :lol: I'd much rather read short, concise and peculiar analyses like these, rather than going down the same old trodden road again


Depends if they have something worth reading of course!


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> Good catch :lol: I'd much rather read short, concise and peculiar analyses like these, rather than going down the same old trodden road again


IMO Haas distorts the poetry because of some strange motivation. The father is comforting, the Erlkönig is the demonic creature "seducing" the boy towards death, even offering his daughters to the boy. To turn this into incest is at best a misreading, at worst a gross misrepresentation.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I remember the old fashioned romantic pianists - Cortot is the obvious example - used to create little stories for the Chopin etudes and nocturnes etc - pretending that the music is based on a narrative. There are videos of Cortot doing it for students in master classes. 

Haas is doing something no more nor less problematic for this Schubert song. 

The proof of the pudding is in the eating of course, and Cortot did some nice performances of Chopin. I’d like to hear a rendition of the song based on Haas’s interpretation. These things are tools really for finding some sort of meaning.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> The proof of the pudding is in the eating of course, and Cortot did some nice performances of Chopin. I'd like to hear a rendition of the song based on Haas's interpretation. These things are tools really for finding some sort of meaning.


100%...........


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Mandryka said:


> I remember the old fashioned romantic pianists - Cortot is the obvious example - used to create little stories for the Chopin etudes and nocturnes etc - pretending that the music is based on a narrative. There are videos of Cortot doing it for students in master classes.
> 
> Haas is doing something no more nor less problematic for this Schubert song.
> 
> The proof of the pudding is in the eating of course, and Cortot did some nice performances of Chopin. I'd like to hear a rendition of the song based on Haas's interpretation. These things are tools really for finding some sort of meaning.


I remember Tortelier doing a similar thing with the Bach cello suites. Thankfully, however, they were rather more palatable


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> To me it is a gratuitously ugly analysis of the work, and one I wish I had never known about.


I agree. Isn't there a tradition of death as a comforting seducer in Romantic poetry? I'm thinking of the "Lullaby" from Mussorgsky's _Songs and Dances of Death_ and I'm sure there are other examples.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

But there is already an obvious literal story or "minimal" interpretation of the poem without invoking paternal sexual abuse. It's not like a Prelude or Nocturne where one could make up anything. 
And how in all the world should a singer/pianist show the "proof of the pudding" by making the sexual abuse and the wanking piano accompaniment clear?


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

EdwardBast said:


> I agree. Isn't there a tradition of death as a comforting seducer in Romantic poetry? I'm thinking of the "Lullaby" from Mussorgsky's _Songs and Dances of Death_ and I'm sure there are other examples.


Yes. Either Death personified (Death and maiden, "Der Jüngling und der Tod" is another one) or supernatural beings like elves as in the other poem/songs by Loewe and others I gave above.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> Interesting choice of word.
> 
> To me it is a gratuitously ugly analysis of the work, and one I wish I had never known about.


But now you can't unthink it. That I think is ultimately the motivation behind such "interpretations".

If I say totally innocent and bland old Mr Soandso over there once went on a rape-and-murder spree when he was in his early 20s, it would indeed probably make him more "controversial" and "interesting". It would also be a lie.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Absolutely bizarre! I hope he was smoking something because otherwise his mind is going to some very bad places. Poetic license? It’s not poetic and he lost his license if he ever had one. Surprised that some are taking it seriously...well, maybe not.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

dissident said:


> But now you can't unthink it. That I think is ultimately the motivation behind such "interpretations".
> 
> If I say totally innocent and bland old Mr Soandso over there once went on a rape-and-murder spree when he was in his early 20s, it would indeed probably make him more "controversial" and "interesting". It would also be a lie.


What? Truth has nothing to do with art


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> But there is already an obvious literal story or "minimal" interpretation of the poem without invoking paternal sexual abuse. It's not like a Prelude or Nocturne where one could make up anything.
> And how in all the world should a singer/pianist show the "proof of the pudding" by making the sexual abuse and the wanking piano accompaniment clear?


Yes but there's no reason to confine yourself to the minimum interpretation is there? I mean, you can do if you want, but you don't have to.

Schubert's stuff often lends itself to multiple meanings - think Winterreise, doppelgänger, nacht und traume, Der Zwerg etc. He had a penchant for setting that sort of poetry. No different here, it's just that Haas's reading touches some taboos, so some people get a the nickers in a twist about it.

Der Zwerg is obviously about homicide, by the way. Certainly non-standard sex too.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> What? Truth has nothing to do with art


What a ridiculous, simplistic generalization.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Yes but there's no reason to confine yourself to the minimum interpretation is there? I mean, you can do if you want, but you don't have to.
> 
> Schubert's stuff often lends itself to multiple meanings - think Winterreise, doppelgänger, nacht und traume, Der Zwerg etc. He had a penchant for setting that sort of poetry. No different here, it's just that Haas's reading touches some taboos, so some people get a the nickers in a twist about it.
> 
> Der Zwerg is obviously about homicide, by the way. Certainly non-standard sex too.


_Der Zwerg_ can be read as a murder ballad, a very common genre of folk songs/tales - nothing strange there unless you think including a dwarf is strange.

No, my issue with Haas is his gratuitous attempt to apply unrelated topics such as incest and [email protected] to this early work of Schubert's. The Goethe text is fairly typical of Romantic narrative poetry with references to ghosts, death seduction, and children's nightmares. Haas appears to me to be overreaching and in a manner to bring attention to himself and not make a serious attempt at getting at the meaning of this work.

And it's worked here on TC with this thread developing into a discussion about everything except the song cycle itself.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> What? Truth has nothing to do with art


Well I think it does. One truth would be that Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son doesn't depict an old man just before he strangles a beggar to death, whether you imagine that or not.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Not worth thinking about. And I won't.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Georg Friedrich Haas needs to be committed.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

marlow said:


> Amazing what images some people's minds conjure up! Says more about Mr Haas than Schubert.


Well and polite full spoken. :clap:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> death seduction


Is that Liebestod?

I think you're misreading Zwerg, by the way.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Literary interpretation fascinates me. Especially interpretation (or let's call it "critical analysis") of Goethe's poetry. Especially of _Faust_, with emphasis on Part II. But Goethe's _lyrische Gedichte_ offers much to contemplate as well. As does Herder's.

Whatever _Erlkönig_ may be about, I'm pleased Schubert set it to music. Though I prefer the songs of _Winterreise_, even if those lyrics are by Wilhelm Müller rather than by Goethe, or Herder.

And regardless of what anyone says of anyone or anything, I will continue to listen to Schubert's music, in all its genres.

And I will continue to read Goethe ... as well as Dante, Shakespeare, and the Greek tragedians.

And "The Whiteness of the Whale" remains my favorite chapter, one I revisit at least once each year, of _Moby Dick _. Which may explain why I cherish Cormac McCarthy's novel _Blood Meridian or The Evening Redness in the West_.

And perhaps somewhere in there the "truth" of the Erlking lies. After all, we may say of nearly anything, especially anything arts related, that "es ist ein Nebelstreif."


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

EdwardBast said:


> What a ridiculous, simplistic generalization.


I thought so too


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> What? Truth has nothing to do with art


So put it on the same level as American celebrity interviews?


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

SONNET CLV said:


> Literary interpretation fascinates me. Especially interpretation (or let's call it "critical analysis") of Goethe's poetry. Especially of _Faust_, with emphasis on Part II. But Goethe's _lyrische Gedichte_ offers much to contemplate as well. As does Herder's.
> 
> Whatever _Erlkönig_ may be about, I'm pleased Schubert set it to music. Though I prefer the songs of _Winterreise_, even if those lyrics are by Wilhelm Müller rather than by Goethe, or Herder.
> 
> ...




We can only say it if it makes sense. What Haas says doesn't to any rational person who studies to text.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

dissident said:


> Well I think it does. One truth would be that Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son doesn't depict an old man just before he strangles a beggar to death, whether you imagine that or not.


That's the most boring possible take. Truth has nothing to do with art in the sense that there's no judgement, beyond the merely descriptive, that is 100% true and demonstrable. This is not a court of justice, Haas isn't asking us to _cancel_ Schubert's dad or Goethe or anyone, it's just an interpretation. He isn't even asking us to _agree_ with him


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> That's the most boring possible take. Truth has nothing to do with art in the sense that there's no judgement, beyond the merely descriptive, that is 100% true and demonstrable. This is not a court of justice, Haas isn't asking us to _cancel_ Schubert's dad or Goethe or anyone, it's just an interpretation. *He isn't even asking us to agree with him*


*
*

At least he's not insulting our intelligence to that extent!


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

marlow said:


> [/B]
> 
> At least he's not insulting our intelligence to that extent!


And still everyone's clutching their pearls


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

dissident said:


> Well I think it does. One truth would be that Rembrandt's Return of the Prodigal Son doesn't depict an old man just before he strangles a beggar to death, whether you imagine that or not.


The only use of the word "depict" in the Haas paper is here



> The ending is direct and illustrative. Instead of the grand pause that would appropriately depict the child's death, we get music and words that are analogous to the end of a rape.


It may be well to look at the text now



> 'I love you, your fair form allures me,


Imagine saying this to a child today. And following it up with this



> '
> and if you don't come willingly, I'll use force.'


https://www.oxfordlieder.co.uk/song/1420

By the way, the link between Erlkonig and an adult's sexual love of pre-pubescents (but not, as far as I remember, rape of pre-pubescents) has been made before in a book called Le Roi des Aulnes by Michel Tournier. I recommend it enthusiastically

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Roi_des_Aulnes_(roman)


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> And still everyone's clutching their pearls


Just our brains


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> That's the most boring possible take. Truth has nothing to do with art in the sense that there's no judgement, beyond the merely descriptive, that is 100% true and demonstrable. This is not a court of justice, Haas isn't asking us to _cancel_ Schubert's dad or Goethe or anyone, it's just an interpretation. He isn't even asking us to _agree_ with him


If you find it boring, make your own excitement instead of foisting your ideas of "exciting" onto some other artist's work. Such an interpretation here and my Rembrandt are descriptive.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> That's the most boring possible take. Truth has nothing to do with art in the sense that there's no judgement, beyond the merely descriptive, that is 100% true and demonstrable. This is not a court of justice, Haas isn't asking us to _cancel_ Schubert's dad or Goethe or anyone, it's just an interpretation. He isn't even asking us to _agree_ with him


You are being very insistent towards those who disagree with Haas to accept his interpretation and appear to be intolerant of any criticism of Haas's argument. It is precisely because there is no truth in art that people come to different understandings of a work like the Erlkönig.

I have to wonder why you appear to have so much trouble with those of us who are unconvinced by Haas.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

SanAntone said:


> You are being very insistent towards those who disagree with Haas to accept his interpretation and appear to be intolerant of any criticism of Haas's argument. It is precisely because there is no truth in art that people come to different understandings of a work like the Erlkönig.
> 
> I have to wonder why you appear to have so much trouble with those of us who are unconvinced by Haas.


It's weird, because I have the exact same feeling, but the other way around. Saying he's crazy or that he needs to be commited, or all of the other things that've been said on this thread, belittles those of us who can see _something_ even mildly interesting in Haas's take. In no way did I try to appear intolerant, first of all, because I myself don't even agree completely with his interpretation, it's just one of many. Furthermore, I have no problem with anyone disagreeing with Haas, I do have a problem with those that flat out disregard it with unsavory comments. And with those I do get angry.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

It is predictable that unsavory content will bring unsavory comments. I'm dismayed that someone would almost take it personally that it is happening. The title of the OP itself is jarring.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

I don't see anything unsavory in Haas, but if you could explain why, I'd appreciate it


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

SONNET CLV said:


> ...
> 
> And perhaps somewhere in there the "truth" of the Erlking lies. *After all, we may say of nearly anything, especially anything arts related, that "es ist ein Nebelstreif."*





marlow said:


> [/B]
> 
> *We can only say it if it makes sense*. What Haas says doesn't to any rational person who studies to text.


Huh?

Arts exist in the realm of _der Nebelstreif_, if "interpretation" is to have any meaning. Something that makes absolute _sense_ needs no interpretation. Indeed, interpretation, in the common understanding of the word, becomes irrelevant.

I would return to that mathematical example I often cite: the Pythagorean theorem, a2 + b2 = c2. You, I, and anybody else may "interpret" this equation, but we will all come to the exact same conclusive understanding of its truth if we comprehend its meaning. There will be no disputive debates upon seeing it this way or that way or ... as one may "interpret" a literary or visual or musical work of art. That's the _beauty_ of the theorem.

I have long preferred art/philosophy to math/science, though I've studied both, primarily _because_ of the interpretive element inherent in a comprehension of the one. To me, _that _is the beauty of art. It is a beauty, ironically, _contrary_ to the beauty of math and science principles, where, one may argue, there exists no "wisp of fog".


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> I don't see anything unsavory in Haas, but if you could explain why, I'd appreciate it


Haas's arguments are idiotic. Violating a convention about how to musically portray the death of a child? Nonsense. Can't be a galloping horse because horses don't have three or six legs? God that's stupid. Wanking tremolo? What, he couldn't wait for the raping?

Unsavory? Just sounds like infantile attention-seeking behavior to me - like the cat $hi††ing on the floor but a little less dignified.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> The only use of the word "depict" in the Haas paper is here
> 
> It may be well to look at the text now
> 
> ...


The lines you quoted are not spoken by the father but by the Erlking. Throughout the text the father is comforting and trying to calm the child by telling him that what he imagines are aspects of the environment, the fog, the wind, etc. The Erlking is a phantom, not real, he is described as having a tail - demonic.

Trying to force this song into the box of paternal rape is a distortion.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> The lines you quoted are not spoken by the father but by the Erlking. Throughout the text the father is comforting and trying to calm the child by telling him that what he imagines are aspects of the environment, the fog, the wind, etc. The Erlking is a phantom, not real, he is described as having a tail - demonic.
> 
> Trying to force this song into the box of paternal rape is a distortion.


Your naive reading is not the only one. Neither is it the most interesting in my opinion. You're assuming that the Erlkonig and the father are distinct. On the Haas reading the Erlkonig is same person as the father overwhelmed by his passion to abuse the child.

(Cf Doppelgänger - where the narrator and the doppelgänger are identical.)


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Mandryka said:


> Your naive reading is not the only one. Neither is it the most interesting in my opinion. You're assuming that the Erlkonig and the father are distinct. On the Haas reading the Erlkonig is same person as the father overwhelmed by his passion to abuse the child.
> 
> (Cf Doppelgänger - where the narrator and the doppelgänger are identical.)


Interesting, reading what the text actually says and music implies is now 'naive'? Comparisons with Doppelgänger are irrelevant. It happens to be a different poem.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

I think abuse or at the very least pederastic desire is a plausible interpretation of the poem. (As I wrote far above, the final verses of the Erlking are fairly explicit for 200 years ago.) 
But I find rather speculative that the father is identified with the abuser (either split personality or split in the child's perception to cope with the duality of loving and abusing father). And I don't see at all how Schubert's music gives additional support to Haas' idea.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

marlow said:


> Interesting, reading what the text actually says and music implies is now 'naive'? Comparisons with Doppelgänger are irrelevant. It happens to be a different poem.


Text and music don't "actually" say or imply anything, if they did there'd be no such thing as art


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> Text and music don't "actually" say or imply anything, if they did there'd be no such thing as art


Great! So let's not bother with language at all!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> I think abuse or at the very least pederastic desire is a plausible interpretation of the poem. (As I wrote far above, the final verses of the Erlking are fairly explicit for 200 years ago.)
> But I find rather speculative that the father is identified with the abuser (either split personality or split in the child's perception to cope with the duality of loving and abusing father). And I don't see at all how Schubert's music gives additional support to Haas' idea.


What do you mean, speculative? I wasn't aware I was speculating about anything, just giving a reading which, I propose, is more or less coherent. I don't know anything about music - rhythms and keys and all that malarkey - so I won't comment about Schubert's here.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

marlow said:


> Interesting, reading what the text actually says and music implies is now 'naive'? Comparisons with Doppelgänger are irrelevant. It happens to be a different poem.


By naive I meant superficial, surface meaning only.

I mentioned Doppelgänger because, I claim, a similar device is at work in the poem.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Your naive reading is not the only one. Neither is it the most interesting in my opinion. You're assuming that the Erlkonig and the father are distinct. On the Haas reading the Erlkonig is same person as the father overwhelmed by his passion to abuse the child.
> 
> (Cf Doppelgänger - where the narrator and the doppelgänger are identical.)


Schubert's musical setting makes a distinction between all of the characters in the song, implying that at least in Schubert's mind the father and the Erlkönig were not the same character.:

"The four characters in the song - narrator, father, son, and the Erlking - are all sung by a single vocalist. The narrator lies in the middle range and begins in the minor mode. The father lies in the lower range and sings in both minor and major mode. The son lies in a higher range, also in the minor mode. The Erlking's vocal line, in the major mode, provides the only break from the ostinato bass triplets in the accompaniment until the boy's death. Schubert places each character largely in a different tessitura, and each has his own rhythmic and harmonic nuances; in addition, most singers endeavor to use a different vocal coloration for each part."(Bodley, Lorraine Byrne (2003). _Schubert's Goethe Settings_. London: Ashgate)

If you and Haas require including incest or child rape in order to make the song interesting, that is certainly something else and not a common interpretation of the song _Erlkönig_.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Mandryka said:


> By naive I meant superficial, surface meaning only.
> 
> I mentioned Doppelgänger because, I claim, a similar device is at work in the poem.


So we have to look for 'meaning' which obviously is unintended lest we get accused of being superficial? We must say black is white because that makes things more interesting?

A similar device is not at work in Doppeldanger btw. You are projecting one onto the other


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

marlow said:


> Great! So let's not bother with language at all!


You know there are many different types of languages, settings and contexts, and a myriad of listeners and interpreters with different backgrounds and so on and so on and so forth. Have you been around for the past 100 years of linguistics, interpretation, structuralism, etc?

EDIT: Oh, and just a word of advice, as someone with only 20 posts to their name and that has been around for only a few days I wouldn't go around antoginizing members of a forum so much. I'm not saying you have to _earn_ it in any way nor do I want to gatekeep, it's just that your agressiveness is very off putting since you haven't been around enough for me to understand a bit what you're all about.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

marlow said:


> So we have to look for 'meaning' which obviously is unintended lest we get accused of being superficial? We must say black is white because that makes things more interesting?


Sanantone's reading is superficial, it's a fact. It is concerned with surface meaning only. Nobody is saying black is white, another fact. A similar device is at work in Doppelgänger, in my opinion.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> Schubert's musical setting makes a distinction between all of the characters in the song, implying that at least in Schubert's mind the father and the Erlkönig were not the same character.:
> 
> "The four characters in the song - narrator, father, son, and the Erlking - are all sung by a single vocalist. The narrator lies in the middle range and begins in the minor mode. The father lies in the lower range and sings in both minor and major mode. The son lies in a higher range, also in the minor mode. The Erlking's vocal line, in the major mode, provides the only break from the ostinato bass triplets in the accompaniment until the boy's death. Schubert places each character largely in a different tessitura, and each has his own rhythmic and harmonic nuances; in addition, most singers endeavor to use a different vocal coloration for each part."(Bodley, Lorraine Byrne (2003). _Schubert's Goethe Settings_. London: Ashgate)
> 
> If you and Haas require including incest or child rape in order to make the song interesting, that is certainly something else and not a common interpretation of the song _Erlkönig_.


Is the range of the Erlkonig part different from that of the father? If not and it's only marked by a change in accompaniment or key - that's interesting and I can use that.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Sanantone's reading is superficial, it's a fact. It is concerned with surface meaning only. Nobody is saying black is white, another fact. A similar device is at work in Doppelgänger, in my opinion.


Then the majority of those who have written analyses of this song are superficial because they do not claim that the song is about child rape?

What I found superficial was Haas's argument that the piano accompaniment could not represent a horse gallop using triplets - a figuration many composers have used for that very purpose - because horses have four, not three, legs.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Is the range of the Erlkonig part different from that of the father? If not and it's only marked by a change in accompaniment or key - that's interesting and I can use that.


The parts share some aspects of range as well as diverge enough to lead any objective listener/scholar to deduce that Schubert wrote the sections for the father and the Erlkönig differently, intentionally wanting to distinguish the characters.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

This from Swedish Wiki is the most convincing interpretation I have seen, and which proposes kind of symbolic child rape:

One interpretation may be that the erlking is seen in the poem as an imaginary person caused by the son's feverish state and thus as an allegory for the child's life-threatening illness. On the other hand, erlking also embodies unconscious pubertal notions: Just as the erlking with erotic fantasies lures the reluctant boy to his kingdom and finally by force gets the upper hand, so the boy through the night excursion will be deprived of his innocence and eventually forced to leave his protected childhood. His death symbolizes the relentless end to naive integrity and his inevitable entry into the adult world.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> The parts share some aspects of range as well as diverge enough to lead any objective listener/scholar to deduce that Schubert wrote the sections for the father and the Erlkönig differently, intentionally wanting to distinguish the characters.


Well _deduce_ is a strong word. I beg to differ, without denying that what you're saying is one possible reading.

Note that I have made no reference to author's intentions - Schubert's or Goethe's.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> The parts share some aspects of range as well as diverge enough to lead any objective listener/scholar to deduce that Schubert wrote the sections for the father and the Erlkönig differently, intentionally wanting to distinguish the characters.


If you don't like superficial, surface meaning, try literal. As opposed to metaphorical.

It's a poem by the way, by Goethe. Not a police report.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Mandryka said:


> Sanantone's reading is superficial, it's a fact. It is concerned with surface meaning only. Nobody is saying black is white, another fact. A similar device is at work in Doppelgänger, in my opinion.


I see. So the parable of the Good Samaritan is really an encouragement to highway robbery, reading between the lines? The Samaritan was in league with the robbers all the time?


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> If you don't like superficial, surface meaning, try literal. As opposed to metaphorical.
> 
> It's a poem by the way, by Goethe. Not a police report.


I am aware that it is a poem, and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.



Mandryka said:


> Well _deduce_ is a strong word. I beg to differ, without denying that what you're saying is one possible reading.
> 
> Note that I have made no reference to author's intentions - Schubert's or Goethe's.


You appear to be impervious to a straight-forward interpretation of the music and text, i.e. the song, because you wish to read something into it other than the obvious. Since your reading, and Haas's, are in the minority - I know of no other interpretation that supports Haas's - I am not worried that it will subsume the more mundane, but IMO accurate, interpretation.

I assume you are familiar with Occam's razor.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> I am aware that it is a poem, and sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
> 
> You appear to be impervious to a straight-forward interpretation of the music and text, i.e. the song, because you wish to read something into it other than the obvious. Since your reading, and Haas's, are in the minority - I know of no other interpretation that supports Haas's - I am not worried that it will subsume the more mundane, but IMO accurate, interpretation.


It's not a competition or battle for subsumption! How can you say I'm impervious to your reading when I've said explicitly that I think it's a possible one?

I like your point about Occam. But it is hard to see how it applies in the context of a discussion like this - no one is supplying an explanatory theory, or hypothesising intentions, we're giving an interpretation.

I don't know what you mean by "accurate" interpretation. Can you say a bit more about that?


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> It's not a competition or battle for subsumption! How can you say I'm impervious to your reading when I've said explicitly that I think it's a possible one?
> 
> I like your point about Occam. But it is hard to see how it applies in the context of a discussion like this - no one is supplying an explanatory theory, or hypothesising intentions, we're giving an interpretation.
> 
> I don't know what you mean by "accurate" interpretation. Can you say a bit more about that?


The conventional interpretation hypothesizes that the child is seriously ill, which is why the father is rushing him home. The child is feverishly experiencing hallucinations and imagines a frightening, demonic, character attempting to lure him away from his father, home, and safety. This is all reflected in Schubert's music.

This is an accurate reading of the text and the music, IMO. To attempt to read into this song child rape, I think stretches credulity.

Sadly the child dies, the father was unable to save him. Child deaths were common in Schubert's time, as were these kinds of scary tales which involve a humanization of death in a threatening manner. Are you familiar with the original Grimm fairy tales? They can be quite grotesque and not what we think of as children's bedtime reading.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> The conventional interpretation hypothesizes that the child is seriously ill, which is why the father is rushing him home. The child is feverishly experiencing hallucinations and imagines a frightening, demonic, character attempting to lure him away from his father, home, and safety. This is all reflected in Schubert's music.
> 
> This is an accurate reading of the text and the music, IMO. To attempt to read into this song child rape, I think stretches credulity.
> 
> Sadly the child dies, the father was unable to save him. Child deaths were common in Schubert's time, as were these kinds of scary tales which involve a humanization of death in a threatening manner. Are you familiar with the original Grimm fairy tales? They can be quite grotesque and not what we think of as children's bedtime reading.


Where does the idea that the child is seriously ill come from?

Incest and child rape occurs in Grimm's _Allerleirauh_, by the way.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allerleirauh

I just want to mention something about Occam's razor, Non sunt multiplicanda entia sine necessitate. You are positing three characters, I am positing two. I think I've razored you!


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> It's weird, because I have the exact same feeling, but the other way around. Saying he's crazy or that he needs to be commited, or all of the other things that've been said on this thread, belittles those of us who can see _something_ even mildly interesting in Haas's take. In no way did I try to appear intolerant, first of all, because I myself don't even agree completely with his interpretation, it's just one of many. Furthermore, I have no problem with anyone disagreeing with Haas, I do have a problem with those that flat out disregard it with unsavory comments. And with those I do get angry.


I said he needs to be committed, because in the classical music world there is such a thing as tact and professionalism, which is something I'd expect from composers, orchestra musicians, conductors et. al. Just because one has a thought or some kind of theory, doesn't mean it's worth broadcasting to the public.


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## BachIsBest (Feb 17, 2018)

Mandryka said:


> Where does the idea that the child is seriously ill come from?
> 
> Incest and child rape occurs in Grimm's _Allerleirauh_, by the way.
> 
> ...


There is incest in _Allerleirauh_, but no child rape.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Since Schubert and Goethe were both noted for being...'interested'...in...'alternative'...matters sexual (alternative to the conventions of the period), it's hardly surprising that someone would find such sexual activity implied (or explicit) in their works.

Shakespeare is full of sex, of course. What with it being an essential human activity, artists wrote, painted, sculpted about it in all its forms since forever - why would composers miss out?

Nevertheless, it might be worth being somewhat circumspect about the level of detail and the enthusiasm with which such a subject is discussed - this Forum is not, after all, _Talk Sex_.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

BachIsBest said:


> There is incest in _Allerleirauh_, but no child rape.


That fairy tale has attempted/intended incest, not actually committed (and it apparently is not common to all versions of the tale, although enforced marriage seems always the reason of the girl's flight).

The idea that the son is ill comes from a naturalist interpretation. If there are no supernatural Erlkings who can seduce and kill, a medical condition is a likely naturalist interpretation. It would also (in addition to the late night) explain the hurry of the father.

BTW one does not die immediately from sexual abuse, so this is not a naturalist explanation for the literal content but requires also re-interpretation of the death of the child, e.g. that the abuse is as bad as killing. 
Which obviously was not the position of Goethe and other polymorphous pervert romantics...


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> That fairy tale has attempted/intended incest, not actually committed (and it apparently is not common to all versions of the tale, although enforced marriage seems always the reason of the girl's flight).
> 
> The idea that the son is ill comes from a naturalist interpretation. If there are no supernatural Erlkings who can seduce and kill, a medical condition is a likely naturalist interpretation. It would also (in addition to the late night) explain the hurry of the father.
> 
> ...


Why is it more natural to have the Erlkonig a hallucination in the child's mind than to have the Erlkonig a poetic representation of the father's libido. Just the death of the child? It's probably true that on Haas we have to construe " In seinen Armen das Kind war tot." as saying "In his arms the child was like a dead thing." That's fine though.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Mandryka said:


> Why is it more natural to have the Erlkonig a hallucination in the child's mind than to have the Erlkonig a poetic representation of the father's libido. Just the death of the child? It's probably true that on Haas we have to construe the last line as saying "the child lay like a dead thing in his arms"


Apart from the fact that the poem has nothing to do with Haas' interpretation of it.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

By the way, it's well worth hearing Haas's orchestration and completion of D840.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Where does the idea that the child is seriously ill come from?


The idea the child is ill has been suggested by a number of interpretations, but is speculative.



> Incest and child rape occurs in Grimm's _Allerleirauh_, by the way.


Something which does not require reading-in.



> I just want to mention something about Occam's razor, Non sunt multiplicanda entia sine necessitate. You are positing three characters, I am positing two. I think I've razored you!


There are four characters: the narrator, the father, the child and the Erlkönig, maybe five if you include the horse.

And I'd like to add a bit of history of the _Erlkönig._

The origin of the Erlking is Danish: a sinister elf who lingers in the woods. He stalks children who stay in the woods for too long, and kills them by a single touch. According to Jacob Grimm, the term ERlking originates with a Scandinavian (Danish) word, _ellekonge_ "king of the elves", or for a female spirit _elverkongens datter_ "the elven king's daughter", who is responsible for ensnaring human beings to satisfy her desire, jealousy or lust for revenge. (Wikipedia)

This German version was most likely familiar to Schubert since it had been anthologized in several versions during the late 18th century.

IMO imputing child rape to this tale or song is an example of "reading-in" and I especially found Haas's rationale (?) unconvincing.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> By the way, it's well worth hearing Haas's orchestration and completion of D840.


As I posted earlier, my interest in Haas has plummeted since reading his article. My prior interest was because he was a living composer, but I was never very fond of his music - I had thought him someone to keep up with, but no longer. IMO there's something wrong with him.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I always thought there was something unnerving about the text, but even though the Erlkonig says that he loves the child and that the child says that he is being touched and then hurt the thought of paedophilia or pederasty never seriously occurred to me - I put it down to the spirit of the age when perhaps words were literal rather than being open to the kind of sinister interpretations which are more prevalent in the world in which we now live. Perhaps Goethe wanted to keep us guessing but surely he was above suggesting the kind of possible scenario to which Haas referred? I assumed the story was more akin to the Noon Witch legend, in which the child is unintentionally smothered to death by the parent.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> As I posted earlier, my interest in Haas has plummeted since reading his article. My prior interest was because he was a living composer, but I was never very fond of his music - I had thought him someone to keep up with, but no longer. IMO there's something wrong with him.


Don't cut off your nose to spite your face. The 9th quartet is a great favourite of mine.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

In truth, one can read sex into just about any text, especially poetry. Short of a letter from any given poet addressing the meaning of their poems, ones interpretation of a poem says more about the interpreter than the poem or the poet. Shakespeare criticism is notorious for this kind of thing. A whole book was written on just this subject/"problem" (The name escapes me at the moment but it was published in the aughts I think). Each age of criticism applied their own preoccupations to Shakespeare's texts. Bear in mind that Goethe is to the German language what Shakespeare is to the English language. I tend to think of criticism and interpretation as its own form of parasitic and quasi-autobiographical literature. I read Haas's comments that way—as a sort of revelation into his own preoccupations and not as anything in anyway intrinsic to Goethe's poem. Tomorrow, a pastry chef will read Erlkönig and inform us that the boy was really a baguette served too late and inedibly stale and that the tearful father symbolized the devastated pastry chef.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> It's not a competition or battle for subsumption! How can you say I'm impervious to your reading when I've said explicitly that I think it's a possible one?
> ...


Is every interpretation possible and equally valid? If not, why not?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

dissident said:


> Is every interpretation possible and equally valid? If not, why not?


I don't know about validity in this context, with its connotations of truth and assertability. I would say that some people find some interpretations inspiring, fruitful , , , ,

Let me give you an example. Someone once said that they thought that the rondo finale of op 130 was a sort of fk you to the Le Tout Vienne. That was for me an inspiring interpretation, it helped me make some sort of sense of things.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> I don't know about validity in this context, with its connotations of truth and assertability. I would say that some people find some interpretations inspiring, fruitful , , , ,
> 
> ...


So if some people find some interpretations inspiring and fruitful, then essentially any interpretation is valid, including thinking that the rondo finale of Op. 130 is actually about an imagined trip to Saturn.


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## HarmonicsV (Mar 20, 2017)

I'm not wearing any pearls: true, and alas boring.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

dissident said:


> So if some people find some interpretations inspiring and fruitful, then essentially any interpretation is valid, including thinking that the rondo finale of Op. 130 is actually about an imagined trip to Saturn.


Obviously there are in fact some interpretations which no one has found useful or inspiring, as far as we know. I think you should steer clear of concepts like _valid_.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

dissident said:


> So if some people find some interpretations inspiring and fruitful, then essentially any interpretation is valid, including thinking that the rondo finale of Op. 130 *is actually about* an imagined trip to Saturn.


Only the composer or author knows what a given work is "actually about". Interpretations are valid as interpretations, not as statements of fact concerning a work's meaning. So, if interpreting op. 130 as a trip to Saturn works for you, then it's a valid "interpretation".


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> As I posted earlier, my interest in Haas has plummeted since reading his article. My prior interest was because he was a living composer, but I was never very fond of his music - I had thought him someone to keep up with, but no longer. IMO there's something wrong with him.


You're wasting energy continuing this argument. Haas was just seeking attention in the same way Susan McClary did when she described the recap in the first movement of Beethoven's 9th as the pent up rage of a rapist. It's not a sincere interpretation. Were it sincere one would have to conclude that Haas is a moron, which I doubt.



vtpoet said:


> Only the composer or author knows what a given work is "actually about". Interpretations are valid as interpretations, not as statements of fact concerning a work's meaning. So, if interpreting op. 130 as a trip to Saturn works for you, then it's a valid "interpretation".


It's not about statements of fact or saying what a work is actually about. The standards for a good interpretation are comprehensiveness, internal consistency, awareness of cultural context, and the like. There are good interpretations of works and there are stupid ones. Haas's is in the latter category.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

dissident said:


> So if some people find some interpretations inspiring and fruitful, then essentially any interpretation is valid, including thinking that the rondo finale of Op. 130 is actually about an imagined trip to Saturn.


Yes, it's known as the Ring Quartet.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Only the composer or author knows what a given work is "actually about". Interpretations are valid as interpretations, not as statements of fact concerning a work's meaning. So, if interpreting op. 130 as a trip to Saturn works for you, then it's a valid "interpretation".


That may be true for "absolute" or "pure" music, but I don't think there's any doubt what, say, the St Matthew Passion is "actually about". Sometimes it's explicitly stated, as it is in the Schubert. The topic isn't really "interpretation" but "REinterpretation".


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

dissident said:


> That may be true for "absolute" or "pure" music, but I don't think there's any doubt what, say, the St Matthew Passion is "actually about". Sometimes it's explicitly stated, as it is in the Schubert. The topic isn't really "interpretation" but "REinterpretation".


Well I have never studied biblical exegesis or music, so you have been warned. The Matthew Passion is a setting of the Matthew Gospel. I bet that there is a plethora of competing interpretations of that gospel, including non literal ones. And I bet that there are a plethora of competing interpretations about Bach's music in the passion - the affects for example.

So basically I think it's not right to just assert so baldly that there's no doubt what the Matthew Passion is about.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Well I have never studied biblical exegesis or music, so you have been warned. The Matthew Passion is a setting of the Matthew Gospel. I bet that there is a plethora of competing interpretations of that gospel, including non literal ones. And I bet that there are a plethora of competing interpretations about Bach's music in the passion - the affects for example.
> 
> So basically I think it's not right to just assert so baldly that there's no doubt what the Matthew Passion is about.


Geez, sometimes it's a good idea to think carefully before responding. What else could the St. Matthew Passion possibly be about? Do you also have some doubt about Wellington's Victory?


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

DaveM said:


> Geez, sometimes it's a good idea to think carefully before responding. What else could the St. Matthew Passion possibly be about? Do you also have some doubt about Wellington's Victory?


Right, there's only one way to read and interpret the bible! Pack it up, religious conflicts are over forever! 
And that's all I'll say about this subject, given that this discussion is not suited to this forum. But that's just how ridiculous your comment is. Also geez, putting a trivial Beethoven piece in between the Bible and Goethe, wonderful argument


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> Right, there's only one way to read and interpret the bible! Pack it up, religious conflicts are over forever!
> And that's all I'll say about this subject, given that this discussion is not suited to this forum. But that's just how ridiculous your comment is. Also geez, putting a trivial Beethoven piece in between the Bible and Goethe, wonderful argument


I think some Christians want to think it's all really straightforward and clear cut.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

allaroundmusicenthusiast said:


> Right, there's only one way to read and interpret the bible! Pack it up, religious conflicts are over forever! ... But that's just how ridiculous your comment is.


Well, given the above, you appear to be an expert on ridiculous comments.



> Also geez, putting a trivial Beethoven piece in between the Bible and Goethe, wonderful argument


Apparently you lost sight about what the argument was.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Its interesting how the article brings up Schubert's relationship with his father. Details of Schubert's life are often sketchy, so I guess any evidence of him being molested would be at best, circumstantial. Nevertheless, their relationship wasn't good, a big source of tension was Schubert refusing to follow in the footsteps of his father as a teacher.

Some musicological work has been done on possible impacts on Schubert's music of his sexuality (e.g. Philip Brett who focused on the piano music for four hands). Whether or not he was homosexual or bisexual, its clear that Schubert led a dissolute life, more like a rock star than a respectable classical musician.

Had he budgeted wisely, he could have lived the life of a lower grade civil servant. In reality, his life consisted of earning money from sales of songs and blowing it on partying. Not long after, he'd be broke, and the hand to mouth cycle continued.

He stated in a letter that he wasn't interested in marrying or having a family. Some accounts place him as a regular visitor to the seedy parts of Vienna. After his death, there where attempts at whitewash (such as the ridiculous story how he caught syphilis from tears, after a kissing girl who was crying) but from what we know he was prone to having casual sex.

Its ironic that the composer who came to represent the essence of conservative Beidermeier values was basically a rebel.

Art song is one of my least favourite classical genres. I know that Schubert revolutionised the genre and _Erkonig_ was an important work in that sense. I thought it was basically a sort of horror story. I'm not really that bothered in what other ways its interpreted. At the end of the day, Haas' is one of many possible interpretations.

There are quite a few songs which I like - more from pop music - where the lyrics suggest a story but don't tell it. There are quite a few by Michael Jackson that I can think of (e.g. _Billie Jean_) and just as in Schubert's case, people will inevitably draw parallels between the music and its creator.


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## allaroundmusicenthusiast (Jun 3, 2020)

DaveM said:


> Well, given the above, you appear to be an expert on ridiculous comments.
> 
> Apparently you lost sight about what the argument was.


I'm not going to argue any further with a person who thinks the gospels of the bible are clear cut, so goodbye


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

I pulled my copy of the classic text _Schubert's Songs_ by *Richard Capell*, from which the following summary is paraphrased. Other information comes from the _Cambridge Companion to Schubert_ edited by *Christopher Gibbs*, who also has written the most recent biography which corrects some long-standing myths.

At the time of Schubert's composing the Erlkönig he was living at his father's house, and met with some friends who when they arrived Schubert was reciting the Goethe poem in a very animated fashion. He at once sat down and sketched out the song. Since there was no piano at hand Schubert and his friends went to a local establishment and Schubert played and sang the song, but the piano part was too difficult for him so he simplified it on the spot.

The song was immediately met with success and became something of a "hit" among Schubert's close community.

There were more than forty other settings of this poem, Beethoven drafted a couple of stanzas but never finished it. The only other setting to rival Schubert's for popularity was by Carl Loewe.

In every case the various characters are distinguished musically: Schubert set the father low, the child high and the Erlking pianissimo. Loewe set the Erlking in a monotone, something like recitative, also softly.

So, the first red herring would be to conflate the father with the Erlking. There is no evidence of this is any of the settings, to the contrary it appears that composers tried to establish the three characters as distinctly as they could musically.

The other distortion would be to give the Erlking a violent sexual motive. In every telling of the tale the Erlking, or Elf King, abducts children not for sex, but to terrify, taunt, kidnap, and/or kill with a simple touch. Sometimes the phantom Elf is female, sometimes male.

The tale was very popular in Europe from the 1770s well into the 19th century, something of a ghost story with imagery not far removed from vampiric tales (although without any sexual overtones) and similar horror stories.

Schubert left hardly any letters, no journals or diaries, or other documentation in order to build a case of child abuse at the hands of his father. Most of what we know about Schubert's life comes from memories of his friends and colleagues. From what I've read, a case for Schubert's alleged homosexually is especially weak.


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## vtpoet (Jan 17, 2019)

DaveM said:


> Geez, sometimes it's a good idea to think carefully before responding. What else could the St. Matthew Passion possibly be about?


Not so much what the Matthew Passion is about (though there's that) but more interestingly, to me, how Bach interprets the Passion through his music. That's what's truly open to interpretation. Gardiner makes some really interesting observations about Bach and the suggestive ways he musically interprets Christian dogma, sometimes seemingly in defiance of, or flouting, the expected meaning.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

vtpoet said:


> Not so much what the Matthew Passion is about (though there's that) but more interestingly, to me, how Bach interprets the Passion through his music. That's what's truly open to interpretation. Gardiner makes some really interesting observations about Bach and the suggestive ways he musically interprets Christian dogma, sometimes seemingly in defiance of, or flouting, the expected meaning.


This isn't directed at you personally, really, but that's about *Bach's* interpretation and approach.

Now something like the Goldberg Variations, on the other hand, can be given a bit of fanciful "interpretation" as to what was intended. Personally, I've always thought of them as sort of a token of affection from Bach to his wife, since the sarabande that forms the basis was in one of Mrs Bach's notebooks. And there's the atmosphere of peace and joy that permeates most (but not all) of the work. But I have absolutely zero evidence for that and if I were a professional performer of the work, my fanciful view would have zero effect on how I perform it.


Mandryka said:


> So basically I think it's not right to just assert so baldly that there's no doubt what the Matthew Passion is about.


Sorry, but that statement is just a disingenuous attempt to maintain an argument. Yes, I can assert pretty baldly what the SMP is about. And so can you.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

SanAntone said:


> Schubert left hardly any letters, no journals or diaries, or other documentation in order to build a case of child abuse at the hands of his father. Most of what we know about Schubert's life comes from memories of his friends and colleagues. From what I've read, a case for Schubert's alleged homosexually is especially weak.


Leaving out the issue of child abuse, the main factor here is that the reminiscences by those who intimately knew him where in most cases recorded decades after Schubert's death.

Not only is memory clouded by time, but those like von Schober - who lived into his eighties - had their own reputations to uphold as respectable gentleman. No wonder their reminiscences are often conflicting and inconsistent. In those days, scandal didn't bring any welcome attention, but only shame. Remember, this was a time when homosexuality was outlawed.

There are parallels with Tchaikovsky. If we believe his first biographer - who was his brother, and also homosexual - then he was your everyday bourgeois gentleman. He even married to prove it. Musicologists up until recent decades tried to sidestep or whitewash what was the elephant in the room.

Unlike Tchaikovsky though, Schubert simply didn't fit in, nor did he want to. Subsequent generations, until recently, found it in their interests to try and fit him into some sort of bourgeois gentleman mould. There was even an autobiographical operetta composed using his tunes called _Lilac Time_, it was hugely popular in the early 20th century. The end as I remember was that Schubert wanted a girl but coudn't get her. Unrequited love and all that.

It doesn't match with reality. He didn't want to marry, and whatever information we have about relationships with women are quite mundane. His most intimate friends where men. He wasn't close to his father, but his brothers where important sources of financial and emotional support. They nursed him through his final illness.

I think that musicological research into Schubert's life is, even if speculative, a welcome change to the icon building that went on in the past. I think there is a difference between filling in gaps with educated guesses and constructing something that is entirely fake.

I even think the issue may not be what his sexuality was, but in examining the paradox of Schubert for what it is, and what it represents in terms of the emergence of modernity. Many have commented on the almost unprecedented psychological depth of his music. To me, he's one of those figures of the 19th century who in a sense don't belong to their own time. Parallels I can think of outside music are Turner and Baudelaire.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Sid James said:


> Leaving out the issue of child abuse, the main factor here is that the reminiscences by those who intimately knew him where in most cases recorded decades after Schubert's death.
> 
> Not only is memory clouded by time, but those like von Schober - who lived into his eighties - had their own reputations to uphold as respectable gentleman. No wonder their reminiscences are often conflicting and inconsistent. In those days, scandal didn't bring any welcome attention, but only shame. Remember, this was a time when homosexuality was outlawed.
> 
> ...


I agree that there has been much mythologizing of Schubert's life, which is why I am looking forward to reading the Gibbs biography. E.G. one theory put forward was that Schubert contracted syphilis from the tears of a crying lady he kissed. A pretty romantic image, but preposterous. The most logical explanation that he enjoyed visiting prostitutes does undercut his being a homosexual. Also, the fact that Schubert mainly socialized with men was typical of the age. The fact that he did not marry before dying at the age of 31 is not proof of anything, IMO, regarding his sexual orientation.

But all of these issues are beside the point, it is his music I am interested in, and not trying to link it with speculative psychobabble about his life.


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## Andrew Kenneth (Feb 17, 2018)

From the blog of Angela Braun =>

"The story has been interpreted in several ways:
1. The first is more or less similar to the actual text: the boy is ill and hallucinates because of his high fever of which he dies in the end.
2. The boy is a victim of sexual abuse through the father who is shown with two faces: the abusive father (the Erlkönig) and the good, protective father who tries to blandish his deeds by calming the child and telling him that he imagines things.
3. A third variant is that the Erlkönig is a symbol for the boy's awakening lust of puberty and that he attempts to pull the boy into his kingdom with erotic fantasies. The boy loses his innocence and his childhood. His death stands for the entering of the adult world, sexuality and his breaking away of his family. The father tries to prevent that by bringing him back home in time, but the arising male urges cannot be stopped."

=> https://www.thepronunciationcoach.com/erlkoenig-franz-schubert-a-guide-to-pronunciation-and-interpretation/


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Andrew Kenneth said:


> From the blog of Angela Braun =>
> 
> "The story has been interpreted in several ways:
> 1. The first is more or less similar to the actual text: the boy is ill and hallucinates because of his high fever of which he dies in the end.
> ...


A portion from that blog entry gives I think a more "sane" and cogent interpretation:


> The son opens each stanza with the question if the father didn't hear or see the Erlkönig (V13/14, V21/22). The father answers always rationally, explaining the images as being natural phenomena (fog, dried leaves, old willow trees). Goethe was one of the first writers of nature-magical ballads that showed the conflict between popular beliefs (son) and the ratio of the enlightened man (father).


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

> E.G. one theory put forward was that Schubert contracted syphilis from the tears of a crying lady he kissed. A pretty romantic image, but preposterous.


That's the most ridiculous theory of the lot, which is why I mentioned it earlier. As Schubert's music got more and more popular after his death, his bohemianism was replaced with a more respectable bourgeois image.



> The most logical explanation that he enjoyed visiting prostitutes does undercut his being a homosexual.


It doesn't rule out bisexuality though.



> Also, the fact that Schubert mainly socialized with men was typical of the age.


They did, however with Schubert there's obviously too many gaps than there should be. He might have had brief relationships with women who where commoners like himself. The women he performed for or taught where unattainable, being above him in terms of class and status.

He was, however, close to Franz von Schober and his circle. He frequently went out with them, and even at times lived with them. Its from these sorts of people that we get information about him, often decades later.

Many composers mainly socialised with men, but there is no lack of evidence about their relationships with women. I see Schubert as being like the James Dean of music, in terms of how biographers attempted to replace the real man with a cardboard cutout of what a composer should be like.



> The fact that he did not marry before dying at the age of 31 is not proof of anything, IMO, regarding his sexual orientation.


Schubert stated in a letter that he wasn't interested in marriage or family life, so we've got that information from the source. It shows how he cared little for social expectations of his time.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

It's perfectly possible to set aside the "psychological" interpretations of Romantic poetry. Goethe and Schubert might just have been interested in the same themes as other artists of the period - the gothic, the fantastic, the power of the imagination and the unconscious. We are not required to interpret the common poetic imagery of the period as having some alternative meaning; a poem about the king of the fairies is a poem about the king of the fairies: end of.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Andrew Kenneth said:


> From the blog of Angela Braun =>
> 
> "The story has been interpreted in several ways:
> 1. The first is more or less similar to the actual text: the boy is ill and hallucinates because of his high fever of which he dies in the end.
> ...


And if you look hard enough I'm sure the child foresees the industrial revolution and the Internet in the poem!


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

It's interesting to compare Schubert's with the lesser known but still frequently recorded setting by Loewe (1824). 
Immediately, I think, we can score some points contra Haas because Loewe sets the "galloping horse" in 9/8 and 6/8 although here "murmuring" 16ths (like the brook in Beethoven's Pastoral and Schubert's Miller's brook) and "swinging/dotted" (8th+16th in 9/8 and later the dotted rhythm known from Beethoven's 7th) dominate, not triplets. So Haas' idea that the triplets are like ************ movements, not the depiction of a running horse or the spooky night forest gets more dubious. Secondly, Loewe is not as gripping and contrastful but generally fairly similar in the way the characters are drawn and contrasted. The Erlking is more mysterious and spooky than melodically seductive but the treatment of the characters by Schubert does not stick out as very different.






Anyway, I think Erlkings words in the poem clearly sound like a child seducer/abductor. He promises toys, games and pretty things and as I said above his final words are rather explicit. But this is not uncommon for these supernatural beings of lore and in the poem the Erlking eventually kills and doesn't sexually abuse the child. There could also be an echo of Ganymede, abducted by Zeus. That's another Goethe poem set by Schubert.


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## Andrew Kenneth (Feb 17, 2018)

According to german wikipedia at a 2005 german psychotherapy symposium the Erlkönig poem was already interpreted as describing sexual violence in which the child-victim disassociates the perpretator in father (good father) and Erlkönig (bad father).

=> "Während der 55. Lindauer Psychotherapiewochen 2005 stellte Luise Reddemann die These auf, das Gedicht handele von einem Albtraum eines Opfers sexualisierter Gewalt, das den Täter in zwei Personen zerlege, nämlich in den Vater als „guten Vater" und den Erlkönig als „bösen Vater". Dass der Täter in Gestalt des „guten Vaters" dem Opfer einrede, es bilde sich die Tat nur ein, sei typisch für das Verhalten von Tätern aus dem Nahbereich von Kindern.[9] Der Tod des Kindes ist bei dieser Interpretation oft ein seelischer Tod, indem das Kind sich in einem verlorenen Zustand befindet."

link => https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlkönig_(Ballade)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Andrew Kenneth said:


> According to german wikipedia at a 2005 german psychotherapy symposium the Erlkönig poem was already interpreted as describing sexual violence in which the child-victim disassociates the perpretator in father (good father) and Erlkönig (bad father).
> 
> => "Während der 55. Lindauer Psychotherapiewochen 2005 stellte Luise Reddemann die These auf, das Gedicht handele von einem Albtraum eines Opfers sexualisierter Gewalt, das den Täter in zwei Personen zerlege, nämlich in den Vater als „guten Vater" und den Erlkönig als „bösen Vater". Dass der Täter in Gestalt des „guten Vaters" dem Opfer einrede, es bilde sich die Tat nur ein, sei typisch für das Verhalten von Tätern aus dem Nahbereich von Kindern.[9] Der Tod des Kindes ist bei dieser Interpretation oft ein seelischer Tod, indem das Kind sich in einem verlorenen Zustand befindet."
> 
> link => https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erlkönig_(Ballade)


So what? You seem attracted to that idea and continue to harp on it.

However, the musical settings clearly differentiate between the characters of the father and the Erlking, so at least in the minds of Schubert and Carl Loewe (the two most famous settings) the theories you are advocating are bunk. This theory also conflicts with the age old context of the tale, text, and songs going back to the Middle Ages.

I am not sure why you and a couple of others find this idea of child rape so attractive. But it has nothing to do with Schubert's song. I see it as the worst kind of revisionist corruption of a fairly straight-forward folk tale.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

You seem a bit upset Sanantone. 

It’s perfectly reasonable to point out that Haas type interpretations have been around for 20 years. Louise Reddemann is a serious academic, university chair and professional honours. And, as we discussed before, father and son aren’t as differentiated as all that in Schubert’s music, they have the same register. The poem is no more straightforward than Hansel and Gretel or Jesus’s parables.

Incest is not uncommon. Rape and incest have been treated elsewhere by Schubert (heidenroslein) and no doubt by other authors and composers too (most obviously Mozart, Henry James, Wagner)


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> Incest is not uncommon. Rape and incest have been treated elsewhere by Schubert (heidenroslein) and no doubt by other authors and composers too (most obviously Mozart, Henry James, Wagner)


Child rape may be a fact of life, but is it really necessary to insist on making this uncomfortable association with a work of fantasy?

The psychological interpretation of works of art (and of the folk tales on which many are based) is a legitimate area of study. However, such interpretations are just that. They are not definitive explanations of what the works are "about".

Even if the artist sets out their purpose (and do we have any record of Schubert's purpose?), there is no guarantee that they themselves can control what is conveyed to or perceived by the audience.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Mandryka said:


> You seem a bit upset Sanantone.
> 
> It's perfectly reasonable to point out that Haas type interpretations have been around for 20 years. Louise Reddemann is a serious academic, university chair and professional honours. And, as we discussed before, father and son aren't as differentiated as all that in Schubert's music, they have the same register. The poem is no more straightforward than Hansel and Gretel or Jesus's parables.
> 
> Incest is not uncommon. Rape and incest have been treated elsewhere by Schubert (heidenroslein) and no doubt by other authors and composers too (most obviously Mozart, Henry James, Wagner)


But always remember academics have to come up with fantastical interpretations to keep them in business. Most normal people don't bother with such nonsense. To say rape and incense in heidenroslein when it is about the spurned love of a boy for a girl is a bit far fetched. The academics need to lay off the cheese at night


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

marlow said:


> But always remember academics have to come up with fantastical interpretations to keep them in business. Most normal people don't bother with such nonsense


Well there's a fantastical interpretation of the work of academics. I think they are as entitled to be regarded as 'normal' as you and me.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Forster said:


> Well there's a fantastical interpretation of the work of academics. I think they are as entitled to be regarded as 'normal' as you and me.


When I hear of certain things going on at certain universities I wonder what normality is


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> It's perfectly reasonable to point out that Haas type interpretations have been around for 20 years. Louise Reddemann is a serious academic, university chair and professional honours.


Which means absolutely nothing.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

marlow said:


> When I hear of certain things going on at certain universities I wonder what normality is


Well I'm sure we all wonder what "normality" is when confronted by an inevitable range of behaviours. Our media (UK) has an increasing tendency to type whole organisations by examples of extreme behaviours. Thus our police forces are all racist and homophobic because some police have been found to be so. And our sub-postmasters are now all paragons of virtue because of the terrible miscarriage of justice that led to the conviction of 900 of them for fraud when a computer error was to blame.

What is normal in life is that there are extremes.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

What would be an interpretation of Erlkonig which makes it appear normal? One which consistent with and indeed supportive of the values and attitudes of its target social social group - western bourgeois I suppose. That’s what the naive folk tale interpretation does - effectively consigning the disturbing taboo breaking aspect of the music to “kid’s stuff.” Erlkonig is just agreeable kid’s stuff, like Hansel and Gretel. Nothing serious here, it’s just a bit of fun. 


You could imagine the same for The Ring - contrasting with, for example, the classic Shavian reading. It’s just a silly story about gods with horns in their helmets, a diversion for the rich at their leisure. Or Waiting for Godot - just an absurd comedy about some blokes waiting for someone who doesn’t turn up.

I’m not convinced that any of these three interpretations best serve the works in question.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

I don’t think as far as Erikonig is concerned one needs to ‘break taboos’ too much as the tale is very dark as it stands without putting perverted interpretations on it.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

The Ring is never "just a silly story". One does not need the quasi-marxist interpretation by Shaw to recognize it as a parable about power and the corruption through power etc. Anyone who'd miss this would obviously miss a lot.
Shaw goes a bit further (admittedly I am not familiar with all the details he presents, it's been a while I read about this) but it's not an inversion of the "surface" reading.

An interpretation of the Ring comparable to making the "Erlking" about abuse *by the father" would make Mime and Alberich the heroes.

Erlkönig is on the surface a ghost story, supposed to be spooky and disturbing, not quite agreeable kid's stuff. Or maybe more general about the dark side of nature, the primeval terror of the nightly forest (probably far more striking 200 years ago before widespread artificial illumination). Or maybe the powerlessness felt while tending a sick child (with a tragic ending also far more widespread until the mid 20th century). 
Maybe also about a dark side of sexual desire.
Unlike others I don't find Haas' reading absurd, but I do find the identification of the father with an abuser relatively far fetched and the more specific mappings of aspects of the musical setting with sexual manipulations bizarre and implausible; see above the comparison with Loewe's almost contemporary setting. Schubert's setting is not sufficiently different to offer evidence for such outlandish interpretations.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> Maybe also about a dark side of sexual desire.
> Unlike others I don't find Haas' reading absurd, but I do find the identification of the father with an abuser relatively far fetched and the more specific mappings of aspects of the musical setting with sexual manipulations bizarre and implausible; see above the comparison with Loewe's almost contemporary setting. Schubert's setting is not sufficiently different to offer evidence for such outlandish interpretations.


What none of us know, though I expect there's a literature about it, is attitudes towards child abuse and in particular incest in early 19th century Austria. For all I know it was a lively issue for the public, medics and politicians.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> What would be an interpretation of Erlkonig which makes it appear normal?


I don't understand your question (or maybe, I don't understand the reason for your question). Who wants "an interpretation of Erlkonig which makes it appear normal?"?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Forster said:


> Well there's a fantastical interpretation of the work of academics. I think they are as entitled to be regarded as 'normal' as you and me.


I guess what Haas does is make Erlkonig a 19th century analogue of Barbara's Aigle Noir. You may think that reading it as a poem about incest is fantastical there also, but I can assure you that it is a very widespread way of reading it.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> I guess what Haas does is make Erlkonig a 19th century analogue of Barbara's Aigle Noir. You may think that reading it as a poem about incest is fantastical there also, but I can assure you that it is a very widespread way of reading it.


Some misunderstanding here I think. The post of mine you quote was about the idea that academics aren't normal, as implied by marlow.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Forster said:


> Some misunderstanding here I think. The post of mine you quote was about the idea that academics aren't normal, as implied by marlow.


Some academics are not normal if you listen to some of the bizarre views propagated by certain of our our institutions of learning.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

marlow said:


> Some academics are not normal if you listen to some of the bizarre views propagated by certain of our our institutions of learning.


Yes, you said that, we don't need to go round it again, surely?


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> The Ring is never "just a silly story". .


Oh yes it is!


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> What would be an interpretation of Erlkonig which makes it appear normal? One which consistent with and indeed supportive of the values and attitudes of its target social social group - western bourgeois I suppose. That's what the naive folk tale interpretation does - effectively consigning the disturbing taboo breaking aspect of the music to "kid's stuff." Erlkonig is just agreeable kid's stuff, like Hansel and Gretel. Nothing serious here, it's just a bit of fun.


I consider a _convincing_ analysis one which is based on:

1) the internal evidence of the music, as well as
2) the history of the text's genesis and
3) how other composers have set it

I do not consider it _convincing_ (although anyone can use any method they wish) to add a gloss of psychological or sociological speculation which ignores or runs counter to the above three aspects of interpretation.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> 1) the internal evidence of the music, as well as


I'm glad you agree that the Haas reading is possible, consistent.

There are a many of interesting things in Haas's paper. Let's take one at a time -- starting with the dissonance around the line _Mein Sohn, es ist ein Nebelstreif._ Something's seriously up! To be honest I really hadn't noticed this before at all, the piano writing is extraordinary and demands some sort of interpretation.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Something Haas does is completely new to me, and I wonder what people think of this part of his paper in principle -- put aside whether it is convincing in the context. It's this. When he talks about the hand movements of the piano player when he does the triads resembling male ************, he's using the physical events of performance to justify the interpretation. It's like someone talking about the formation of embrasure to explain something (in erotic music maybe), or the way a percussionist has to handle his hammers (in, f.e. Mahler 6.) 

I've never come across this strategy before in musical hermeneutics, but it's surely a good thing -- this music isn't written for concert audiences only, it's written to be performed.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Something Haas does is completely new to me, and I wonder what people think of this part of his paper in principle -- put aside whether it is convincing in the context. It's this. When he talks about the hand movements of the piano player when he does the triads resembling male ************, he's using the physical events of performance to justify the interpretation. It's like someone talking about the formation of embrasure to explain something (in erotic music maybe), or the way a percussionist has to handle his hammers (in, f.e. Mahler 6.)
> 
> I've never come across this strategy before in musical hermeneutics, but it's surely a good thing -- this music isn't written for concert audiences only, it's written to be performed.


You are quick to embrace interpretations which I consider spurious.

Talking about the shape of the hand when playing a chord or figure on the piano, and then rotating it 90 degrees in order to make a pornographic comparison I think is bizarre. To do this while denying that the piano part was written to call to mind urgency and galloping horse hooves, shows Haas to have a scenario he wishes to promote at the expense of the basic facts of the work.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> embrace
> .


No, explore. Rather than dismiss. Just a sort of modesty and curiosity about ideas I guess.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

SanAntone said:


> You are quick to embrace interpretations which I consider spurious.
> 
> Talking about the shape of the hand when playing a chord or figure on the piano, and then rotating it 90 degrees in order to make a pornographic comparison I think is bizarre. To do this while denying that the piano part was written to call to mind urgency and galloping horse hooves, shows Haas to have a scenario he wishes to promote at the expense of the basic facts of the work.


If you play a piano reduction of the coda of the Shostakovich fifth, you make pretty much the same gesture with your hand. So what? These harebrained "re-interpretations" say more about the re-interpreter and the preoccupations of the times than anything else.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Forster said:


> Yes, you said that, we don't need to go round it again, surely?


Just answering your point of misunderstanding. If you read the papers you will see my point.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

dissident said:


> If you play a piano reduction of the coda of the Shostakovich fifth, you make pretty much the same gesture with your hand.


Sure, that may be. But what was new to me was to introduce considerations about the physicality of the performance in the interpretation of the music. It may be a common practice, for all I know. But for me, it was new -- all interpretations I can think of focus exclusively on the score and on the sounds.


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> Sure, that may be. But what was new to me was to introduce considerations about the physicality of the performance in the interpretation of the music. It may be a common practice, for all I know. But for me, it was new -- all interpretations I can think of focus exclusively on the score and on the sounds.


Just wait til you find out about cello cross-bowing, not to mention what your hand looks like when you're applying vibrato.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

dissident said:


> Just wait til you find out about cello cross-bowing.


I think, just speaking for myself, I tend to forget that music is meant to be performed. I tend to think all the time of what the audience hear, and what the composer wrote, never about what the musicians do. That's a real imbalance especially in domestic music (like a 19th century song for voice and piano in fact.)


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> I think, just speaking for myself, I tend to forget that music is meant to be performed. I tend to think all the time of what the audience hear, and what the composer wrote, never about what the musicians do. That's a real imbalance especially in domestic music (like a 19th century song for voice and piano in fact.)


Composers are certainly conscious how the music lays under the hands of the performer. But they are more likely to be concerned with writing the music so that is idiomatic for the instrument rather than simulating sexual acts.


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

marlow said:


> Just answering your point of misunderstanding. If you read the papers you will see my point.


I saw your point already, thank you. The misunderstanding was not yours, nor mine, but Mandryka's.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Once again, because it's so freakin' obvious: Haas is just taking a dump on Schubert because it attracts attention to a contemporary composer and denigrates one who annoyingly refuses to cede the field two hundred years after his death. ("Why are people still listening to this wanking would be rapist?")

It worked on me. I listened to some of Haas' music — long enough to grow intolerably bored of several works.


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

EdwardBast said:


> Once again, because it's so freakin' obvious: Haas is just taking a dump on Schubert because it attracts attention to a contemporary composer and denigrates one who annoyingly refuses to cede the field two hundred years after his death. ("Why are people still listening to this wanking would be rapist?")
> 
> It worked on me. I listened to some of Haas' music - long enough to grow intolerably bored of several works.


Now that I am aware that Haas thinks simulating sexual acts is a legitimate method of composing, the kind that he imagined Schubert had done in the Erlking, it has resulted in my losing any interest in his music. Prior to reading his article I had thought of him as a prolific and somewhat interesting composer, although not really liking his music. I now think of Haas as a composer with some psychosexual fetishes and obsessions which I do not wish to think about while I listen to music.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> I now think of Haas as a composer with some psychosexual fetishes and obsessions which I do not wish to think about while I listen to music.


Then listen to his music and don't think about them, obviously!


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Then listen to his music and don't think about them, obviously!


I cannot unring the bell this thread has rung.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

SanAntone said:


> I cannot unring the bell this thread has rung.


Then let me try to reframe his art. His wife is an alcoholic. He wrote a piece about her called Hyena. I find his openness about this, and his way of making a work of art from her condition, an inspiring act of conscious raising, as I do Finnissy's AIDS based piece called Unknown Ground, and Luc Ferrari's exploration of lesbian lifestyles in Danses Organiques.

There are all sorts of near-taboo subjects in "classical" music, including alcoholism, BDSM and indeed incest. I think they shouldn't be taboo.






https://www.deutschlandfunk.de/georg-friedrich-haas-hyena-vertonte-alkoholsucht-100.html


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## 59540 (May 16, 2021)

Mandryka said:


> There are all sorts of near-taboo subjects in "classical" music, including alcoholism, BDSM and indeed incest. I think they shouldn't be taboo.


I don't really think BDSM and incest are classical music subjects, unless there are works that are explicitly dealing with such material. Otherwise it's superimposed on classical music by people with other agendas.

Btw nothing except maybe racist or otherwise bigoted attitudes is really "taboo" anymore anyway.


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## Kreisler jr (Apr 21, 2021)

This is nonsense. Alcoholism, roughly heavy drinking, is present in lots of classical operas and songs and it has hardly been a secret that many artists, composers etc. were heavy drinkers. Incest is not uncommon in many mythological subjects, such as Oedipus or Walküre. 
They are hardly taboos at all, in fact, classical art, drama and music was for centuries and even prudish decades often the easiest way to present such themes (as well as fetishes or other sexual deviations, i.e. homoeroticism or Salome snogging the head of a dead man) in polite society. Only the worst stuff was (at times cut) ad usum delphini.
(I haven't checked the opera forum but I am not aware of frequent pearl clutching at Oedipus, Salome or Falstaff (drinking)

What brings people up agains Haas in this thread is him obviously enjoying fairly outlandish taboo associations with a famous piece.


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## marlow (11 mo ago)

Mandryka said:


> There are all sorts of near-taboo subjects in "classical" music, including alcoholism, BDSM and indeed incest. I think they shouldn't be taboo.
> 
> url]


This sort of 'music' is certainly taboo - for the sake of my ears at any rate! I can deal with the subject but not this noise!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

marlow said:


> This sort of 'music' is certainly taboo - for the sake of my ears at any rate! I can deal with the subject but not this noise!


That's another point, and obviously if you feel that way, just don't listen!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Kreisler jr said:


> Alcoholism, roughly heavy drinking


THIS is nonsense!



Kreisler jr said:


> Incest is not uncommon in many mythological subjects, such as Oedipus or Walküre.
> .


This is true, I stand corrected. Voluntary incest. So I think your point again is disingenuous.



Kreisler jr said:


> What brings people up agains Haas in this thread is him obviously enjoying fairly outlandish taboo associations with a famous piece.


This is true, but I was making a point about Haas's music, or one piece of it!


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## SanAntone (May 10, 2020)

Mandryka said:


> Then let me try to reframe his art. His wife is an alcoholic. He wrote a piece about her called Hyena. I find his openness about this, and his way of making a work of art from her condition, an inspiring act of conscious raising, as I do Finnissy's AIDS based piece called Unknown Ground, and Luc Ferrari's exploration of lesbian lifestyles in Danses Organiques.
> 
> There are all sorts of near-taboo subjects in "classical" music, including alcoholism, BDSM and indeed incest. I think they shouldn't be taboo.


I have no problem with composers finding inspiration wherever they choose, and to write something to honor or memorialize a person or issue is absolutely fine and even laudable. I am not attracted to works about incest or other similar sexual themes, in fact, I find the incest in _Die Walküre_ a damaging distraction to my enjoyment of the opera.

However there is no evidence that Schubert included anything remotely sexual or taboo in his song. For me the only rape regarding the "Erlkönig" was the one perpetrated on it by Haas.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Then let me try to reframe his art. His wife is an alcoholic. He wrote a piece about her called Hyena. I find his openness about this, and his way of making a work of art from her condition, an inspiring act of conscious raising, as I do Finnissy's AIDS based piece called Unknown Ground, and Luc Ferrari's exploration of lesbian lifestyles in Danses Organiques.
> 
> There are all sorts of near-taboo subjects in "classical" music, including alcoholism, BDSM and indeed incest. I think they shouldn't be taboo.
> 
> ...


I find this work to be, among other things, pretentious. Regarding his 'openness': I wonder how his wife felt about it.


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

Haas has lost his mind. I find some of his earlier pieces compelling but his newer work bores be to tears. He'll end up as just another footnote I am afraid.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Red Terror said:


> Haas has lost his mind. I find some of his earlier pieces compelling but his newer work bores be to tears. He'll end up as just another footnote I am afraid.


I thought the 9th quartet was wonderful!


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## Forster (Apr 22, 2021)

Artists must of course express themselves in whatever ways they feel to be true. However, given music's notoriously unreliable ability to convey or express any particular message, let alone on sensitive or taboo subjects requiring subtlety, you have to wonder at the musical choices of some artists.


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