Erlkönig (1782), one of Goethe's most beautiful ballads, evokes the elemental realm of spirits, which extends over the world of forests in the most uncanny way. Goethe resurrects a lunar and telluric poetry that reaches back to prehistoric times. Pre-Romanticism loved to revive the old legends anchored in prehistoric times in the form of folk ballads, according to which the souls of the dead wander and hover among the living and pose a constant threat to them. A father walks through a forest at night to take his seriously ill son to a doctor. The ballad describes the dialog between father and son: one hears the deceptive star of the alder king, the other gives him realistic explanations. Goethe's ballad, in which myth and auditory hallucination meet, takes no sides and limits itself to hinting at the terrible and relentless character of a fantastic ride. Schubert turned it into an incomparable song. The period after Freud offers quite different, disturbing interpretations.
This piece concludes the cycle of piano works that I have dedicated to Goethe and Schubert.
Erlkönig was commissioned by the Festival Archipel in Geneva, the Festival d'Automne in Paris and the Musée d'Orsay für François-Frédéric Guy and is dedicated to him, who is giving the world premiere of the piece.