Schubert, Gretchen am Spinnrade  (Gretchen at the Spinning Wheel) (CC-English)
Channel: TreyD Music & Media
Date: 17/12/2019

Performer: Paula Bar-Geise, Soprano & Pianist
- Performing on a 1808 Meincke & Pieter Meijer Piano
- Location: Schepenzaal Royal Palace – Amsterdam
- Ms Bar-Geise YouTube Channel: 
        https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=PAULA+BAR-GIESE

"Fair Use Notice" 
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- I have provided the English subtitles.

Franz Schubert (1797-1828) was 17 years old when he composed this lied in 1814!  Goethe’s play Faust (1808) is the source of the text (part 1, scene 18).  The song is in three sections with many verses and a chorus.  A woman is making yarn at her spinning wheel and sings of her obsession over a man that seems to go nowhere. The piano portrays the spinning wheel.  The spinning wheel portrays her predicament.

Songs have been around for centuries, even millennia.  However, during the Romantic Era the song produce a branch called the Art Song (Lied in German, Chanson in French, and Aria in Italian).  The Romanic Art Song featured one singer accompanied by a virtuosic pianist.  This isn’t saying that parents quit singing to their children, or friends stopped singing as they got drunk, or the faithful no longer joined in singing the hymns.  But the Art Song is worth our attention because of its complex emotional messages (it’s the romantic thing to do, don’t you know).

Schubert lived 31 years.  By all appearances, Schubert was as gifted as Mozart: he had perfect pitch (knew every note that he heard), he could memorize a tune on one hearing, composed quickly and in his head before writing it down, was a virtuoso pianist, and composed in all genres.  His output was amazing.  In his short life he composed more than 1,500 tunes and over 600 were Lieder!