Schubert: Die Schone Mullerin

Schubert wrote various kinds of work for the stage. Yet his greatest dramas are to be found in the two song-cycles to poems by Wilhelm Müller. Here voice and piano together depict a natural setting and convey a narrative through songs whose surface simplicity belies their emotional depth. Both cycles are journeys: Die schöne Müllerin, for all that its imagery of streams and industry, nature and young love, is gentler than that of the chilly tale of Winterreise, is equally a story of alienation and death.

In an interview that accompanied the first release of this 1997 recording, Bo Skovhus spoke of his research into some of the background to the cycle. He notes that in making his setting, Schubert discarded three of Müller’s 23 poems: ‘Schubert neglected the ironic parts on purpose, because he took every poem seriously… Those three poems did not fit what he wanted, and also held up the action.’ He also offers a closing comparison with Winterreise, and its eerie last song, ‘Der Leiermann’. Both final songs step outside the action. But in Die schöne Müllerin the mood is consolatory, and Skovhus reads the very last line – ‘And the sky above, how wide it is’ – as a moment of peace, and as perhaps offering hope of life after death.