Gretchen am Spinnrade

Gretchen am Spinnrade (D. 118, Op. 2) is one of Schubert's first, most successful, and most widely recognized accomplishments in the genre of the Lied, a 19th-century German art song for solo voice and piano. Schubert composed over 600 Lieder, but the breadth and compositional maturity of this 1814 example are an early indication of his gift for the form. The text is a strophic poem taken from Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's play Faust, depicting a scene in which Gretchen, sitting at the spinning wheel (spinnrade), daydreams about Faust, a man with whom she is infatuated though she has only just met him and barely knows him. Schubert employs the first stanza as a refrain, repeating the text ("My peace is gone/My heart is heavy/I will never again find them") to heighten the dramatic intensity as Gretchen becomes increasingly overwhelmed by her feelings. The piano accompaniment, with its relentless sixteenth notes in the right hand, depicts both Gretchen's accumulating madness and the perpetual motion of the spinning wheel. Sixty-five measures pass before the pattern breaks, when Gretchen is so overcome by her emotions that she stops spinning while imagining Faust's kiss. It then takes three tries to get the spinnrade turning again, which we hear in measures 69-71 before the spinning figure resumes in measure 72 to accompany Gretchen's doleful refrain. This arrangement is also available for 3-part treble (SSA) voices published by Hal Leonard Corporation, 00140699.