Gretchen At The Spinning Wheel

The Files section contains the subject work, which is a Liszt arrangement of Schubert's original song. 

http://www.forum-pianoteq.com/uploads.p...etchen.mp3

The name, Gretchen, refers to the female character in Goethe's Faust.

The following narration is quoted from Wikipedia:
Gretchen is singing at her spinning wheel while thinking of Faust and all that he promises. The accompaniment mimics the spinning-wheel in constantly revolving semiquaver/sixteenth note figurations in the right hand, while the spinning wheel's foot treadle back and forth is quoted in the left hand part — speeding up and slowing down in response to the text, to show Gretchen's excitement or distraction from her work at the spinning wheel.

At the climax of the piece, the piano playing stops as Gretchen becomes overly distracted by the thought of Faust's kiss, and then only hesitatingly begins again as she realizes she has forgotten to keep spinning.

Schubert ingeniously uses the piano to imitate the rhythmic repetition of the spinning wheel, perhaps mirroring either the hypnotic effect of temptation and the devil and/or love. The constancy of Gretchen's infatuation is alluded to not only by constancy of the spinning, but also by the repetition of the first stanza periodically throughout the song and the emphatic repetition of the final stanza three times.

The mp3 file was performed using Pianoteq 3.5.1 with a binaural response pattern.  Enjoy.

Cheers,

Joe