The Most Devastating Song I Know

Franz Schubert’s “Gretchen at Her Spinning Wheel,” composed at 17, and why it wrecks me

Some songs stay with you for days. This one has stayed with me for years.

I've yet to come across a song
That breaks me down so powerfully
As that of Gretchen at her Spinning Wheel.

She sits in place unraveling, pining,
Swelling, as her spools of love —
Desire, ache, and longing,
Enclose her ever gradually from the world.

Until despair’s catharsis overcomes her,
Mephisto’s magic overwhelms her:
Her Faust is gone
Forever.

Let’s talk about a song written by a 17-year-old. I hesitate to call him a man because he was seventeen but certainly not a young boy either. Young man is a middle ground that doesn’t do justice to the subject matter I’m about to share with you. For, as someone with many more years than a mere seventeen, the piercing, shattering, and utterly devastating emotional articulation this 17-year-old captured overwhelms me every time.

Gretchen am Spinnrade was composed in 1814 by Franz Schubert (1797-1828). Middle class, non-noble, Viennese, without immediate access to an instrument, not particularly happy, pushed around by his family, though not quite an incel a far cry from a Chad. But already a master of melancholy, sadness, and tragedy. Of communicating those emotions in a composition of music.

So much for introductions.

The title of the song translates to Gretchen at her Spinning Wheel. The lyrics of the song are lifted from a poem of the same name by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Gretchen is the young woman whom Faust seduced, through the magical powers bestowed upon him by Mephistopheles. In other words, Faust made his deal with the Devil, selling his soul for superhuman wisdom. Faust’s lust for knowledge easily spilled over into lust for a beautiful young woman. So, in the story, Faust encounters her, casts his spell, and seduces her, ensuring her ruin (this is Enlightenment era Europe, after all). She succumbs, her innocence stolen, without any knowledge of the devilry behind Faust. Goethe’s poem is written from her perspective, post-seduction.

Faust has disappeared. She sits at her spinning wheel, longing for him. She knows he will never return to her, but she cannot help herself. Love is conquering her. She’s completely fallen for him, truly, completely – chastely. But Faust is not chaste. He’s poisoned her, so as she sits and pines, she loses her mind.

Musically, the theme Schubert gives us is one in near constant motion: as Gretchen’s mind spins, the spinning wheel spins and spins. Her mind unravels as she closes herself off to the world and into the corrupt memory of her experience with Faust. This spinning and enclosing and unraveling builds in tension and desperation until she explodes in emotional turmoil — not once but twice. Only to sputter out with a heavy heart. And I’ve not even mentioned the haunting melody…

Goethe was a master of the German language and among the greatest contributors to literature of all time. And with this song, a 17-year-old composer set the poem to music in a way that adds power and emotional insight that words alone cannot communicate. Devastating beauty to the level of the absolute.

Below is a link to a startling performance of the song, as well as an excellent performance of the version for solo piano, as transcribed by the great Franz Liszt — himself a Faustian, Goethean figure.

Enjoy! May you be wrecked and devastated, too.

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“Gretchen am Spinnrade” — Sung by Wallis Giunta, Piano by Peter Dugan

Solo Piano Transcription by Franz Liszt — Performed by Dora Deliyska

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If my words and — more importantly — this music moved you, please drop a comment, share your favorite devastating piece of music… or just let it break you quietly (and subscribe for more in silence).

P.S. No promises, but I am thinking about making my own recording of this masterpiece. We’ll see…
Would you want to hear it?