Here is pianist Chris Foley’ submission for the Next Great Art Song survey. Chris has promoted our competition on his blog, and you can also follow him on twitter.
In 1815, an 18-year-old student of Antonio Salieri named Franz Schubert was making a meagre living teaching children in the outskirts of Vienna. Although still a teenager, Schubert's setting of Die Erlkönig was revolutionary in every way, from the virtuoso-like relationship of voice to the keyboard to the portrayal of multiple narrators in Goethe's text, setting the course for an entire genre that took piano, voice, and text-setting to a higher level of artistry than ever before.