Prometheus (art song)

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"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. It 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.[1] In Goethe's dramatic declamation by Prometheus, which would be set again, with very different effect, by Hugo Wolf,[2] "with his alternations of ariosos and recitatives, Schubert created a miniature oratorio", observes Edward F. Kravitt.[3]

Among many other lieder by Schubert, Max Reger also created an orchestration for "Prometheus".[4]


For the text, see Prometheus (Goethe)


Voice and piano[edit]

Voice and orchestra (Max Reger)[edit]


  1. ^ Prometheus ("Bedecke deinen Himmel"), song for voice & piano, D. 674 at AllMusic (Analysis)
  2. ^ 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-siècle Vienna, 2007, p. 192, note 57.
  3. ^ Kravitt, Edward F., The Lied: Mirror of Late Romanticism, p. 65. Yale University Press, 1996, ISBN 978-0-300-06365-3
  4. ^ Schubert arr. Reger: Orchestral Songs at AllMusic

External links[edit]