The Erlking (German: Erlkönig, "Alder King") is depicted in a number of German poems and ballads as a malevolent creature who haunts forests and carries off travellers to their deaths. The name may be an 18th-century mistranslation of the original Danish word elverkonge, "elf-king". The character is most famous as the antagonist in Goethe's poem Der Erlkönig and Schubert's musical adaptation of the same name.

The Erlking as a character has its origins in a common European folkloric archetype, the seductive but deadly fairy or siren (compare La Belle Dame sans Merci and the nix). In its original form in Scandinavian folklore, the character was a female spirit, the elf-king's daughter (Elverkongens datter). Similar stories existed in numerous ballads throughout Scandinavia in which an elverpige (female elf) was responsible for ensnaring human beings to satisfy her desire, jealousy or lust for revenge.

Johann Gottfried von Herder introduced this character into German literature in Erlkönigs Tochter, a ballad published in his 1778 volume Stimmen der Völker in Liedern. It was based on the Danish folk ballad Hr. Oluf han rider "Sir Oluf he rides" published in the 1739 Danske Kæmpeviser. Herder undertook a free translation where he translated the Danish elvermø ("elf maid") as Erlkönigs Tochter; according to Danish legend old burial mounds are the residence of the elverkonge, dialectically elle(r)konge, the latter has later been misunderstood in Denmark by some antiquarians as "alder king", cf Danish elletræ "alder tree". It has generally been assumed that the mistranslation was the result of error, but it has also been suggested (Herder does actually also refer to elfs in his translation) that he was imaginatively trying to identify the malevolent sprite of the original tale with a woodland demon (hence the alder king).

Franz Peter Schubert (German pronunciation: [ˈfʁants ˈʃuːbɛɐ̯t]; 31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828) was an Austrian composer.

Although he died at the age of 31, Schubert was a prolific composer, having written some 600 Lieder, nine symphonies (including the famous "Unfinished Symphony"), liturgical music, operas, some incidental music, and a large body of chamber and solo piano music. Appreciation of Schubert's music during his lifetime was limited, but interest in his work increased significantly in the decades following his death. Franz Liszt, Robert Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Felix Mendelssohn, among others, discovered and championed his works in the 19th century. Today, Schubert is seen as one of the leading exponents of the early Romantic era in music and he remains one of the most frequently performed composers.

Schubert was born in Himmelpfortgrund (now a part of Alsergrund), Vienna, on 31 January 1797. His father, Franz Theodor Schubert, the son of a Moravian peasant, was a parish schoolmaster; his mother, Elisabeth Vietz, was the daughter of a Silesian master locksmith, and had also been a housemaid for a Viennese family prior to her marriage. Of Franz Theodor's fourteen children (one illegitimate child was born in 1783), nine died in infancy; five survived. Their father was a well-known teacher, and his school in Lichtental, a part of Vienna's 9th district, was well attended. He was not a musician of fame or with formal training, but he taught his son some elements of music.

Steven Spooner is an American pianist, and currently Assistant Professor of Piano at the University of Kansas in Lawrence, Kansas.

As a performing artist, Steven Spooner has given solo recitals at such major venues as Carnegie Hall, Holland's Vredenburg Centre, the Salle Cortot in Paris, Budapest's Great Hall of the Liszt Academy, Geneva's Fete de la Musique and numerous other halls across Europe, Latin America, South America, Asia, and the United States. Dr. Spooner has recently completed an enormous recital series comparable to Anton Rubinstein's historic recitals of 1885. These concerts consisted of seventeen solo piano recitals embracing much of the standard piano literature from the Baroque to composers of the 21st century. Dr. Spooner is also an active chamber collaborator and has performed with a diverse and distinguished list of vocalists and instrumentalists including, Silk Road Ensemble's Bassist Daxun Zhang, former Philadelphia Orchestra Trombonist, M. Dee Stewart, and prize-winning violinist Leor Maltinsky. Dr. Spooner's orchestral engagements include performances with the Danubia Symphony Orchestra, Brevard Symphony Orchestra, Crescent City Symphony, New Orleans Civic Symphony, Ozark Chamber Orchestra, and recent performances with the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin during their recent tour of North America. Steven Spooner is a Steinway Artist.

Elena Gerhardt (11 November 1883, Connewitz (nr. Leipzig) – 11 January 1961, London) was a German mezzo-soprano singer associated with the singing of German classical lieder, of which she was considered one of the great interpreters. She left Germany for good to live in London in October 1934.

Elena Gerhardt, daughter of a Leipzig restaurateur, studied at the Leipzig Conservatory from 1899 to 1903, first with Professor Carl Rebling and then with Marie Hedmondt (d. 1941), who remained her friend and vocal adviser for many years. After a year of only technical study, she began work on operatic roles, such as Cherubino, Dorabella, the Mignon of Ambroise Thomas and Hermann Goetz's Katharina, interspersed with Lieder. She won the Carl Reinecke Scholarship. Leipzig provided many opportunities to hear international artists and to hear the early masters.

In 1902 Arthur Nikisch became director of the Leipzig Conservatory, and approved her to sing publicly in Leipzig, which she first did in November 1902: he also gave her a solo in Franz Liszt's "Choruses from Herder's Entfesseltem Prometheus" (S. 69). On graduating in 1903, and with many engagements, she mentioned her wish to give a lieder recital, and Nikisch offered to be her accompanist, their first (victorious) performance being at the Kaufhaus in Leipzig on her twentieth birthday. Concert engagements poured in, and she sang lieder in almost every university town as supporting artist to names such as Eugène Ysaÿe, Teresa Carreño or Max Reger. By 1905 she made her first appearances (with Nikisch) in Hamburg and Berlin (the Bechsteinhall), and in Berlin made the friendship of Richard Strauss. From summer 1905 she spent holidays with the Nikisch family near Ostend.

Thomas Quasthoff (born November 9, 1959) is a German bass-baritone. Although his reputation was initially based on his performance of Romantic lieder, Quasthoff has proven to have a remarkable range from the Baroque cantatas of Bach to solo jazz improvisations.

Quasthoff was born in Hildesheim, Germany, with serious birth defects caused by his mother's exposure during pregnancy to the drug thalidomide which was prescribed as an antiemetic to combat her morning sickness. Thomas Quasthoff is 4' 4¾" (1.34 m) [1] tall due to shortening of the long bones in his legs, and he has phocomelia of the upper extremities with very short or absent long bones.

Quasthoff was denied admission to the music conservatory in Hanover, Germany, owing to his physical inability to play the piano, rather than a lack of skill required for entry to the conservatory. In the early stages of his education as a singer, Quasthoff was promoted by Sebastian Peschko. Thus, he chose to study voice privately. He also studied law for three years. Prior to his music career, he worked six years as a radio announcer for NDR. He also did voice-over work for television.