BACKGROUND
"Gretchen am Spinnrade" was Schubert's first successful lied written in 1814 when he was just 16, which is thoroughly impressive considering how well this piece is composed and how highly it compares to his later works. The text was written by the poet Goethe, of which the full text and english translation can be found here.
STORY OUTLINE
The character of Gretchen recites (or sings) the words while she spins fiber into yarn at a spinning wheel. The intensity of her love for Faust has destroyed her ability to live any longer within the confines she had known all her life. She is young, inexperienced and has fallen madly in love. She has not yet had sex with Faust; he will soon give her a sleeping potion for her mother, so he can seduce her at home. (Her mother will never wake up).
LISTENING
"Gretchen am Spinnrade" was Schubert's first successful lied written in 1814 when he was just 16, which is thoroughly impressive considering how well this piece is composed and how highly it compares to his later works. The text was written by the poet Goethe, of which the full text and english translation can be found here.
STORY OUTLINE
The character of Gretchen recites (or sings) the words while she spins fiber into yarn at a spinning wheel. The intensity of her love for Faust has destroyed her ability to live any longer within the confines she had known all her life. She is young, inexperienced and has fallen madly in love. She has not yet had sex with Faust; he will soon give her a sleeping potion for her mother, so he can seduce her at home. (Her mother will never wake up).
LISTENING
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ANALYSIS
The poem is written in Knittelvers; each pair of two lines has four strong beats, with a varying number of syllables occurring before each beat, usually one, two or three. The very regular beats throughout the poem suggest the constant spinning of the wheel. This idea of representing the spinning wheel is explored further by the way Schubert has composed the left hand accompaniment using a dotted minim pedal tone, with a quaver note, then a quaver rest, then two quaver notes. This stuttering rhythm symbolises Gretchen's foot on the pedal as it drives the wheel. The constant spinning of the wheel is represented by the repetitive 16 note semiquaver pattern played by the right hand. This constant motion is further driven forward by the 6/8 time signature which, because of where the beat falls makes the spinning feeling amplified, simulating the pressing of the pedal. These rhythmic ideas can be seen in the score below.
These steady rhythms pulsate underneath a similarly symbolic vocal line which acts also as a musical metaphor for the pedal movements made by Gretchen with many quavers leading into longer dotted crotchets, much like the motions of the left hand melodic contours.
Much of the piece shows Gretchen overwhelmed by her love for Faust, and how it is causing her much distress because of this profound infatuation. This distress is represented by the tonality of a minor key which is continued for much of the text. At the point in the poem at which Gretchen sees Faust out her window "His noble gait, His noble form", the music decrescendos suddenly, almost as if she's sneaking up upon him. This reduction in volume also allows the piece's build up to appear more profound due to the increased dynamic range. As she's watching him, thinking about him, the music gains more intensity, slowly rising in pitch up the scale. At the words "And the magical flow of his speech", the piece shifts to a major key, still rising up a scale, still crescendoing, gaining more and more intensity. Gretchen's notes are also rising in register, all representing her rising emotions. The piece finally climaxes when she sings "And ah! His kiss". This is met with an abrupt stop in the piano, symbolising the stopping of her spinning yarn, accompanying the voice with mere dotted-minim chords, allowing Gretchen's voice to shine through and all her emotions to be concentrated on the kiss she's sharing with Faust; Almost as if her heart has stopped. The top note of the piece on which she sings "Kiss" is paused, allowing her voice to die down before the music continues, once again demonstrating the important nature of that moment to her, as everything around her has ceased in that moment. The music's and Gretchen's emotional climax can be seen below.
Following this 'high point', there are three bars almost note-for-note repeated one after another representing Gretchen's pedal movements, kick starting the motion of the wheel once again. After this stuttering start, the motif from the beginning of the piece returns in a minor key once again is still aching, yearning for Faust. This yearning is shown musically simply through slight movements up the scale, semi-tones at a time as Gretchen sings "My heart is yearning, Yearning for him". To end the piece, Schubert utilises a slight rallentando as well as decreasing the volume gradually to a 'triple-p' dynamic marking, fading out the music to a single chord stop just as the text reads "To fade from sight".