phrases are echoed by the voices of father and son, the father taking up the deeper, rising phrase, and the son a lightly undulating, answering theme around the dominant fifth. These two themes also evoke the rising and moaning of the wind. The Erl-King, who is always heard pianissimo, does not sing melodies, but instead delivers insubstantial rising arpeggios that outline a single major chord (that of the home key) which sounds simultaneously on the piano in una corda tremolo. Only with his final threatening word, "Gewalt", does he depart from this chord. Loewe's implication is that the Erlking has no substance but merely exists in the child's feverish imagination. As the piece progresses, the first in the groups of three quavers is dotted to create a breathless pace, which then forms a bass figure in the piano driving through to the final crisis. The last words, , leap from the lower dominant to the sharpened third of the home key; this time not to the major but to a diminished chord, which settles chromatically through the home key in the major and then to the minor. See also List of works based on Erlkönig References Further reading External links Translation by Matthew Lewis Translation at Poems Found in Translation , translation and performance by Josh Ritter , orchestrated by Max Reger; Teddy Tahu Rhodes, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Sebastian Lang-Lessing Full score and MIDI file of Schubert's setting of "Erlkönig" from the Mutopia Project Ballads Poetry by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 1782 poems Musical settings of poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Poems about death Songs about death Songs about children Songs about kings Songs about fictional male characters