Julianna Massielo

Music Historiography II

Dr. Nicole Vilkner

6 March 2019

Gretchen am Spinnrade: The Beginning of Lieder

It is easy for historians and teachers to put music into defined sections. The six musical

periods are classified as Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern.

Each of these time periods has a set of dates associated with it and every composers music can be

deposited into a section and labelled in a certain way. But, many composers did not write pieces

that can easily be placed into these sections and take aspects of more than one period. Franz

Schubert was one of those composers, though he lived in the Classical musical period, most of

his compositions leaned towards a more romantic style. Franz Schubert used his music training

from his youth combined with his passion for composition to create such masterpieces such as

Gretchen am Spinnrade ​in a time when lieder was not a popular form of composing, focusing on

text to create something the world had never heard before. ​.

Franz Peter Schubert (1797-1828) is an Austrian composer who is credited with bridging

the Classical and Romantic periods. He is the son of a Vienna schoolmaster and grew up

surrounded my music in his home and at school. In school, his talent won him a scholarship to a

prestigious boarding school in Vienna. Schubert had a true passion for composition and was able

to compose at a speed and fluency that was unimaginable. Schubert was able to earn a majority

of his funds from publishers and performances of his music. He could be classified as a freelance

composer. In his time this was not common, but he was able to make a steady living doing this
and most likely inspired composers of today to follow a path similar to his. As he grew older,

Schubert began to create works of a larger scale including chamber music, symphonies, and

operas that were mostly performed after his death. By the end of his life, Schubert had produced

almost one thousand works. One of his most popular works was ​Gretchen am Spinnrade,

composed in October of 1814. Writing this work when he was seventeen, Schubert included

many details that one would not believe that a teenager could be sensitive to.

The text for ​Gretchen am Spinnrade ​was taken from ​Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s

(1749-1832) famous play ​Faust.​ Schubert has a talent for setting texts that are ‘mediocre’ and

turning them into something reat, but Goethe’s text already held power and Schubert just

allowed it to come alive with music. In the play, Faust is challenged throughout his life by

Mephistopheles, who wants to lure Faust to hell. The Lord says that he may try and tempt Faust

to led him astray from the Lord, and he does try. Faust falls in love with Gretchen, but in the end

leaves her and retreats back to stay on the path to the Lord and avoid hell and Mephistopheles

temptations. By doing this he leaves Gretchen alone leaving them both passionate and alone.

When looking at the structure of the text, Richard says, “The first section reveals the turmoil of

Margarete's distraught condition, the second tells us of the wonderful qualities of Faust in her

eyes, the third expresses her deep physical longing.”1 Goethe is able to use the structure of the

text to convey the intensity in the meaning behind it. When performing this piece it is important

for the context of the play to be understood, so that the correct emotions can be portrayed by the

singer. This intensity is not only present in the text, but, also in the music of the accompaniment

and vocal lines.

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Richard, ​Gretchen am Spinnrade
Gretchen am Spinnrade b​ egins with a short two measure piano intro. The right hand

plays a ostinato pattern that occurs throughout the whole piece. This pattern represents the

monotony of a spinning wheel and the turning of the actual wheel that Gretchen is spinning. The

top line of the bass part in the piano is representative of the treadle (pedal) on a standard spinning

wheel. The pattern in both parts follows through until the end of the piece. There are a few key

moments where the piano accompaniment deviates from it’s pattern. The first moment is at

measure fifty-one, on the text, “​Sein hoher Gang,​”2 the right hand ostinato continues while the

left hand treadle ceases and the left hand begins to only play block chords. This shift in color

represents Gretchen’s change in attitude as she begins to talk about all the best things about her

lover, “​His proud bearing, his noble form,the smile on his lips, the power of his eyes,”​ As the

tempo increases, as does her urgentness, she must tell the world about her lover. Finally, in this

B section, the right hand suddenly stops playing the ostinato pattern and plays block chords as

Gretchen says, “​Sein Händedruck, Und ach, sein Kuss!​” (​The touch of his hand, And ah, his

kiss!​). She is so overwhelmed with emotion that she drops the work she is doing at the spinning

wheel and exclaims her love. In the next measure (69) following her exclamation, you are able to

hear the sound of the spinning wheel trying to start again as Gretchen attempts to refocus on her

work. In this moment, the original text is reiterated by the singer, emphasizing the emotions

presented at the beginning of the piece. This repetition, and every other repetition of this text are

significant because it shows the listener how, even though Gretchen is expressing all the ways

she loves her significant other, she knows that he is still leaving her, and there is nothing she can

do about it. Following this moment, the color of the piece changes once again. When the singer

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Oxford Lieder
says the text, “​Mein Busen drängt sich nach ihm hin.” (My bosom yearns for him), the same

pattern in the right and left hand accompaniment continues, but at this section moves forward,

the tempo gains speed as the singers frantic thoughts continue. She cannot contain how she feels

and wants to exclaim her love to anyone that can hear. In the climatic line of the piece, Gretchen

exclaims how she would die in his kisses, “An seinen Küssen Vergehen sollt”. But, the piece

ends with a repetition of the opening text, reiterating the fact that her lover is leaving her and that

she can do nothing about it but feel the pain she feels.

Of all of Schubert’s compositions published in his lifetime, two thirds were dedicated to

lieder (one hundred and seventy-five songs). He wrote over six hundred songs by the time of his

death. Composing masterful lied, ​Gretchen am Spinnrade,​ at age seventeen, it was clear to other

composers living at the time that Schubert was going to to produce music that would change the

art form. In his composing, he reached out to over one hundred and fifty composers in a

seventeen year time frame ranging from well known poets, to friends of his. His ability to set a

wide range of texts was unique, and he had a special talent for conveying strong emotions

through his texts. Schubert is able to weave meaning into and through text, accompaniment, and

vocal lines with ease. His compositions are responsible for the, “​raising of the lied from a

marginal to a central genre”3. Because he is the one who made lied popular, Schubert leads the

genre in his ability and originality. “Over the next dozen years Schubert invested every stylistic

aspect of the lied with a richness that, dramatically speaking, rivalled and even surpassed opera.

Although his harmonic language grew out of the chromaticism of Mozart, his harmonic daring in

lieder could approach that of mid-century Wagner.”4 Schubert is able to move through keys

3
Brown, Sams, Winter
4
Brown, Sams, Winter
flawlessly and with a sensitivity to text and aptitude for music that is rare. It is rare that one

person is able to create music with so many layers of meaning, and to do so consistently

throughout their career with many different inspirations and poets along the way. Schubert’s

artistry will live on as long as music is prominent in the world’s society.

Overall, Franz Schubert was a genius of a composer and propelled forward one of the

most popular music forms in him time. His genius allowed for him to reach out with his music

and touch the hearts of millions of people so many years after his life. With ​Gretchen am

Spinnrade, ​he was able to connect to the psyche of someone experiencing the pain of love and

lust at just seventeen years old. His artistry only grew with his age and allowed for him to sent

many poems of all different subjects. Composers like Schubert are important to the history of

music because he proves that honing one’s craft in a specific genre can be beneficial for

humanity and for one’s name recognition. Composers who are changing the ‘game’ like Schubert

did are around right now in the Modern Era of music. From Pop to Classical music in the 21st

century, there are main influencers in the modern period that music history will continue to talk

about after this generation is long gone. From Dolly Parton to Caroline Shaw, each artist brings

something to the music industry that hasn't been seen before. It is important to remember the

impact that one person can have on an entire music era, and it will be interesting to see who that

influencer is in the era we are currently living in.

Brown, M., Sams, E., & Winter, R. (2001, January 01). Schubert, Franz. ​Grove Music Online.

Ed. Retrieved 25 Feb. 2019, from

http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/o

mo-9781561592630-e-0000025109.

Burkholder, J. P., Grout, D. J., & Palisca, C. V. (2014). Chapter 25: The Romantic Generation:

Song and Piano. In ​A History of Western Music​(9th ed., pp. 586-623). New York, NY:

W. W. Norton.

​Goethe, J. W., & Stokes, R. (2005, February). Gretchen am Spinnrade. Retrieved March 1,

2019, from ​https://www.oxfordlieder.co.uk/song/199

Richard. (2016, June 13). Gretchen am Spinnrade. Retrieved March 3, 2019, from

http://figures-of-speech.com/2016/06/gretchen.htm