Franz Schubert.
The poem “Erlkönig” by Goethe has been set to music several times (you can find Sir Walter Scott’s translation of the poem at this earlier post). Below, in a performance infused with a very contemporary raw anxiety, Anne Sofie von Otter sings Franz Schubert’s setting of the poem, accompanied by the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, conducted by Claudio Abbado:
Miss van Otter doth protest too much. Much more effective is the simpler quieter version as Schubert wrote it. For example, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in this performance:
http://youtu.be/e40Mm8baD7A
A fine performance, with strengths of its own, but I think we can have both.
And now for something completely different:
http://youtu.be/idBZPteNJxs
From the sublime to the ridiculous.