Home | Songs By Year | Songs from 1819
Prometheus (art song)
Buy Prometheus (art song) now from AmazonFirst, read the Wikipedia article. Then, scroll down to see what other TopShelfReviews readers thought about the song. And once you've experienced the song, tell everyone what you thought about it.
Wikipedia article
"'Prometheus'", D. 674, is an intensely dramatic art song composed by Franz Schubert in October 1819 to a poem of the same name by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
Music
The ' was written for bass voice in the key of B major, but the key moves repeatedly through various major to minor tonalities, ending in C major. (Analysis) Goethe's dramatic declamation by Prometheus would be set again, with very different effect, by Hugo Wolf,Wolf considered Schubert's "Ganymed" and "Prometheus" unsatisfactory, in part because "a truly Goethean spirit" could only be fulfilled in the "post-Wagnerian era", according to a Wolf letter to Emil Kaufmann, noted in Scott Messing, 'Schubert in the European Imagination: Fin-de-sicle Vienna', 2007, p. 192, note 57. "with his alternations of ariosos and recitatives, Schubert created a miniature oratorio", observes Edward F. Kravitt.Kravitt, Edward F., 'The Lied: Mirror of Late Romanticism', p. 65. Yale University Press, 1996,
Among many other ' by Schubert, Max Reger also created an orchestration for "Prometheus".
Recordings
;Voice and piano
:'Schubert: Goethe-Lieder', Thomas Quasthoff (bass-baritone), Charles Spencer (piano), RCA Records, 1995
:'Schubert: Goethe-Lieder', Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone), Jrg Demus (piano), Deutsche Grammophon, 1999
:'Schubert: Goethe-Lieder', Vol. 1, Ulf Bstlein (bass-baritone), Stefan Laux (piano), Naxos Records, 2000
;Voice and orchestra (Max Reger)
:'Schubert arranged by Reger: Songs', Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, Dennis Russell Davies (conductor), Dietrich Henschel (baritone), MD&G Records, 1998
:'Schubert arr. Reger: Orchestral Songs', Klaus Mertens (baritone), Camilla Nylund (soprano), NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Werner Andreas Albert (conductor), cpo Records, 1998
:'Schubert: Lieder With Orchestra', Thomas Quasthoff (bass-baritone), Anne Sofie von Otter (mezzo-soprano), Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Claudio Abbado (conductor), Deutsche Grammophon, 2003
References
Buy Prometheus (art song) now from Amazon
<-- Return to songs from 1819