Bartje Bartmans | Franz Schubert - Die schöne Müllerin, D.795 (1823) @bartjebartmans | Uploaded March 2024 | Updated October 2024, 1 week ago.
Franz Peter Schubert (31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast oeuvre, including 600 secular vocal works (mainly Lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of piano and chamber music. The Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 (Trout Quintet), the Symphony No. 8, D. 759 (Unfinished Symphony), the three last piano sonatas, D. 958-960, and his song cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise are some of his most important works.
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Die schöne Müllerin, D.795 (1823)
Librettist: Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827)
Dedication: Karl von Schönstein
1. Das Wandern (0:00)
2. Wohin? (2:30)
3. Halt! (4:37)
4. Danksagung an der Bach (6:09)
5. Am Feierabend (8:08)
6. Der Neugierige (10:33)
7. Ungeduld (14:02)
8. Morgengruß (16:35)
9. Des Müllers Blumen (20:03)
10. Tränenregen (22:52)
11. Mein! (26:02)
12. Pause (28:15)
13. Mit dem grünen Lautenbande (32:35)
14. Der Jäger (34:33)
15. Eifersucht und Stolz (35:49)
16. Die liebe Farbe (37:28)
17. Die böse Farbe (41:23)
18. Trockne Blumen (43:35)
19. Der Müller und der Bach (46:47)
20. Des Baches Wiegenlied (50:32)
Max Egmond, baritone & Penelope Crawford, fortepiano (Graf 1835)
Müller published twenty-five poems in the first fascicule (1821) of Sieben und siebzig Gedichten aus den nachgelassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten (Seventy-seven Poems from the Posthumous Papers of an Itinerant Hornist"). They arose from his unrequited passion for Luise Hensel, herself a poet as well as sister in law to Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn.
Schubert set twenty of them to music between May and September 1823, while he was also writing his opera Fierrabras. He was 26 years old at the time. Schubert omitted five of the poems, such as a prologue and an epilogue delivered by the poet. The work was published in 1824 by the firm of Sauer and Leidesdorf as Op. 25 under the title Die schöne Müllerin, ein Zyklus von Liedern, gedichtet von Wilhelm Müller (The Lovely Maid of the Mill, a song cycle to poems by Wilhelm Müller) and was dedicated to the singer Carl von Schönstein.
There are twenty songs in the cycle, around half in simple strophic form, and they move from cheerful optimism to despair and tragedy. At the beginning of the cycle, a young journeyman miller wanders happily through the countryside. He comes upon a brook, which he follows to a mill. He falls in love with the miller's beautiful daughter (the "Müllerin" of the title). She is out of his reach as he is only a journeyman. He tries to impress her, but her response seems tentative. The young man is soon supplanted in her affections by a hunter clad in green, the color of a ribbon he gave the girl. In his anguish, he experiences an obsession with the color green, then an extravagant death fantasy in which flowers sprout from his grave to express his undying love. (See Beethoven's "Adelaide" for a similar fantasy.) In the end, the young man despairs and presumably drowns himself in the brook. The last number is a lullaby sung by the brook.
HOW TO SING LIEDER?
Is there one way to sing Lieder? Fortunately not! The reason why classical vocal music is so interesting is that there are so many different and contrasting singers, each with a personal interpretation and individual style. I have always been fascinated by those colleagues who are able to adapt their voices and styles to the different genres in their repertoire.
For me, an important factor is the question of dimensions. Operas are, of course, performed in spacious theatres, certainly today. An oratorio often takes place in a cathedral.
But Lieder recitals, even though often done in a large concert hall, inevitably remind me of a living room, and a restricted number of friendly listeners who are sitting or standing around the piano while feeling almost personally involved with the performers. The result is an inner need to sing more intimately. That, in turn, presents the challenge to use more subtle nuances, sometimes resulting in exposing minor flaws that are otherwise covered up by drama and expansion.
And then there is also the devotion to text. I cannot help feeling that in Lieder, the declamation is as important as the singing. True, classical singers cannot exist without vocal vanity. But they should sacrifice a part of that when dealing with the art song. Instead, they should delve into the particulars of the given language, with its tradition of pronunciation
and classic declamation.
Finally, though we now live in a time when emotions are less openly shown, we should remember that Schubert’s own ‘living room audiences’ were often moved to tears during his house concerts, as appears in correspondence between his friends. Therefore, I believe that
Lieder singers should not shy away from a personal emotional touch.
—MAX VAN EGMOND
Franz Peter Schubert (31 January 1797 – 19 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast oeuvre, including 600 secular vocal works (mainly Lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music and a large body of piano and chamber music. The Piano Quintet in A major, D. 667 (Trout Quintet), the Symphony No. 8, D. 759 (Unfinished Symphony), the three last piano sonatas, D. 958-960, and his song cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise are some of his most important works.
Please support my channel:
ko-fi.com/bartjebartmans
Die schöne Müllerin, D.795 (1823)
Librettist: Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827)
Dedication: Karl von Schönstein
1. Das Wandern (0:00)
2. Wohin? (2:30)
3. Halt! (4:37)
4. Danksagung an der Bach (6:09)
5. Am Feierabend (8:08)
6. Der Neugierige (10:33)
7. Ungeduld (14:02)
8. Morgengruß (16:35)
9. Des Müllers Blumen (20:03)
10. Tränenregen (22:52)
11. Mein! (26:02)
12. Pause (28:15)
13. Mit dem grünen Lautenbande (32:35)
14. Der Jäger (34:33)
15. Eifersucht und Stolz (35:49)
16. Die liebe Farbe (37:28)
17. Die böse Farbe (41:23)
18. Trockne Blumen (43:35)
19. Der Müller und der Bach (46:47)
20. Des Baches Wiegenlied (50:32)
Max Egmond, baritone & Penelope Crawford, fortepiano (Graf 1835)
Müller published twenty-five poems in the first fascicule (1821) of Sieben und siebzig Gedichten aus den nachgelassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten (Seventy-seven Poems from the Posthumous Papers of an Itinerant Hornist"). They arose from his unrequited passion for Luise Hensel, herself a poet as well as sister in law to Fanny Hensel and Felix Mendelssohn.
Schubert set twenty of them to music between May and September 1823, while he was also writing his opera Fierrabras. He was 26 years old at the time. Schubert omitted five of the poems, such as a prologue and an epilogue delivered by the poet. The work was published in 1824 by the firm of Sauer and Leidesdorf as Op. 25 under the title Die schöne Müllerin, ein Zyklus von Liedern, gedichtet von Wilhelm Müller (The Lovely Maid of the Mill, a song cycle to poems by Wilhelm Müller) and was dedicated to the singer Carl von Schönstein.
There are twenty songs in the cycle, around half in simple strophic form, and they move from cheerful optimism to despair and tragedy. At the beginning of the cycle, a young journeyman miller wanders happily through the countryside. He comes upon a brook, which he follows to a mill. He falls in love with the miller's beautiful daughter (the "Müllerin" of the title). She is out of his reach as he is only a journeyman. He tries to impress her, but her response seems tentative. The young man is soon supplanted in her affections by a hunter clad in green, the color of a ribbon he gave the girl. In his anguish, he experiences an obsession with the color green, then an extravagant death fantasy in which flowers sprout from his grave to express his undying love. (See Beethoven's "Adelaide" for a similar fantasy.) In the end, the young man despairs and presumably drowns himself in the brook. The last number is a lullaby sung by the brook.
HOW TO SING LIEDER?
Is there one way to sing Lieder? Fortunately not! The reason why classical vocal music is so interesting is that there are so many different and contrasting singers, each with a personal interpretation and individual style. I have always been fascinated by those colleagues who are able to adapt their voices and styles to the different genres in their repertoire.
For me, an important factor is the question of dimensions. Operas are, of course, performed in spacious theatres, certainly today. An oratorio often takes place in a cathedral.
But Lieder recitals, even though often done in a large concert hall, inevitably remind me of a living room, and a restricted number of friendly listeners who are sitting or standing around the piano while feeling almost personally involved with the performers. The result is an inner need to sing more intimately. That, in turn, presents the challenge to use more subtle nuances, sometimes resulting in exposing minor flaws that are otherwise covered up by drama and expansion.
And then there is also the devotion to text. I cannot help feeling that in Lieder, the declamation is as important as the singing. True, classical singers cannot exist without vocal vanity. But they should sacrifice a part of that when dealing with the art song. Instead, they should delve into the particulars of the given language, with its tradition of pronunciation
and classic declamation.
Finally, though we now live in a time when emotions are less openly shown, we should remember that Schubert’s own ‘living room audiences’ were often moved to tears during his house concerts, as appears in correspondence between his friends. Therefore, I believe that
Lieder singers should not shy away from a personal emotional touch.
—MAX VAN EGMOND
