Survey of Western Art Music

Falane Facey

Dr. Belfy

8 October 2003

Carl Reinecke: Sonata Undine

Most everyone has seen Disney’s The Little Mermaid. It is a great fairytale about a mermaid who wants to be part of the world outside the water. She agrees with the witch of the sea to give her voice forever unless she is kissed by a certain time by the prince. The prince and her fall in love, and almost kiss on the boat, but the witch’s eels tip the boat. Ariel the mermaid loses her voice, and has to return to the water. The witch contains her voice in a shell, but the animals of the sea break the shell and release her voice when the witch tries to marry the prince as Ariel. The witch turns into a monster and the prince kills her. Ariel and the prince fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after.

The Little Mermaid was based off a tale by a French writer La-Motte Foque in the early

1800’s; the romantic era. The tale is Undine, who is the “little mermaid”, but in this tale she is called a water spirit. She wants to obtain a soul, or be part of the upper world, like in the Little

Mermaid. She is found above water as a human by a fisherman and his wife. They raise her as a child. Hulbrand, the “prince”, seeks shelter from a storm, and the family lets him stay. Undine falls in love with Hulbrand, and they marry. She confesses that she is a water spirit, and tells him that he does not have to be married to her if that bothers him. He confesses his undying love for her, and tells her that her being a water spirit doesn’t matter. She is warned by the spirits that if he betrays her love, she has to kill him. He becomes uncomfortable with her constant kindness, and her being a water spirit, so they argue, and she goes back to the water. He then finds comfort in Berthalda, who he soon falls in love with. He tries to marry Berthalda, but on their wedding day, Undine comes and gives him a bittersweet kiss, a kiss of death. She goes to his funeral sadly, and disappears into a water spring on his grave. This story does not end happily ever after like the Little Mermaid.

Like the Little Mermaid, a lot of literature, music, and art was based off of this romantic tale. Carl Reinecke was fasinated with this story, so he wrote a flute sonata about it called Sonata

Undine.