Comparing Die Schöne Müllerin And The Beautiful Maid Of The Bell

Despite having a relatively short life, Franz Schubert managed to compose over 1,500 works, two of them being song cycles. The first of these is titled Die schöne Müllerin, which translates to “The Beautiful Maid of the Mill.” This piece, which is inspired by Wilhelm Müller’s poem cycle of the same title, depicts the story of a young mill hand who, while searching for work, finds love and meets his death as a result. While the text and music conjure beautiful scenes of a mill by a babbling brook, the events that surrounded this piece’s composition were not so ideal.
Although the details surrounding the exact date and creation of Die schöne Müllerin, scholars agree that “the composition of this cycle coincides with Schubert’s discovery that
he had a sexually contracted fatal disease.” It is likely that he contracted syphilis in November 1822, which left him extremely ill for several months. In the time following his recovery, Schubert may have started composing Die schöne Müllerin. However, in 1823, most likely during autumn, he received treatment for infectioussecondary syphilis in a hospital, which is when and where he completed the song cycle. In addition, Schubert was also battling cyclothymia, a mild form of manic depression, which worsened when he contracted syphilis. Needless to say, Schubert was not in the best of health while he was composing Die schöne Müllerin. It is fitting that Schubert was composing this piece during one of the lowest points of his life. In the poem, the main character, a young mill hand looking for work, falls in love with the daughter of the miller who hires him. Although he believes he has won her heart, she chooses to love a hunter, instead. Dismayed and brokenhearted, the mill hand commits suicide in the brook. This carries a dark theme of unrequited love, and the message that something you love could ultimately cause your death. In Schubert’s case, one cannot be certain that his syphilis, which was sexually contracted, caused his death. However, his emotions towards his initial illness may have stirred up feelings of impending death.
Susan Youens defines the song cycle as “A group of individually complete songs designed as a unit…for solo or ensemble voices with or without instrumental accompaniment.” Unlike a song collection, the songs in a song cycle are arranged in a specific order so that the songs’ texts tell a story or portray a central theme. There is not a typical length for song cycles: some can be a short as two songs, and some can contain upwards of thirty songs. The forms of the songs in song cycles are not strictly dictated, either, which leave plenty of room for creativity on the composer’s part.
Die schöne Müllerin fits the “typical” song cycle mold fairly well.
Through text and music, the piece tells the story of a young mill hand: “the first three songs bring us to the locale of the love affair, the next twelve songs trace step-by-step the progression from first encounter to returned love to rejection, and the last five recount the bitter aftermath and suicide.” The text of the piece comes from Wilhelm Müller’s poem of the same title, which started out as a liderspiel, or “song play.” Originally, this piece featured multiple characters, with roles that were read and sung, and was set to music by multiple composers. Müller later revised the poem to be told solely in the miller lad’s voice, which is the version Schubert set music to in 1823. Since this piece is only told through one character’s voice, it is classified as a monodrama, which still conforms to the typical song cycle template. Like a typical song cycle, this piece includes piano accompaniment throughout the entire piece. However, Schubert takes the opportunity to create imagery in the piano part. For example, in “Das Wandern,” the flowing sixteenth notes in the piano part represent the brook that the main character is walking along as he searches for work at the nearest mill. Schubert also takes liberties in the forms he uses for each of the songs in this cycle. He alternates writing strophic, modified strophic, and through-composed songs. This, in addition to the integration of the voice, piano, andpoetry, brings variety to the song cycle as well as represents the development of the lied as a serious musical form. The length of the piece also lends it to conforming to the normal song cycle format. Schubert composed twenty songs for this song cycle, which does make it lengthy, but is still considered “normal” for a song
cycle.
The first time I listened to Die schöne Müllerin, I immediately was interested in the first piece, “Das Wandern.” I found the melody to be catchy and I even caught myself humming it on a few occasions. I also enjoyed how simple the piano part was. After some research, the song is even more intriguing. The title itself (translated as “Wandering” or “traveling by foot”) leads one to think it would make a suitable hiking song. However, the tempo makes it tricky for one to walk to comfortably: “if keeping pace with the eighth notes of the 2/4 measure, one ends up jogging; or if by the quarters, then it becomes a solemn walk.” Also, while the melody is happy and joyous, it is difficult to sing while hiking due to the rests that cannot be bridged over or circumvented. In addition, the piano part is so intertwined with the vocal part, making it difficult to accurately sing the vocal part unaccompanied. This struck me as interesting, as the title suggests that the piece is written in a certain style, but under a closer look, the characteristics of the piece contradict the suggested style. Additionally, I thought it was interesting that Schubert decided to leave out a few poems from Müller’s Die schöne Müllerin in his composition. According to Youens, the poems that Schubert cut in his version are critical inunderstanding one of the main themes of the poem cycle. Many scholars have ideas as to why these poems were left out of the song cycle. Some suggest that it was to keep the song cycle from being too long. Additionally, others offer the idea that Schubert left out these poems because he simply did not like them. On the other hand, it is possible that these poems were left out to change the meaning of the cycle and “suggest[s] more strongly that the miller’s love is ‘almost entirely the product of his own longing, with little nourishment in reality.’” By removing the poems that give the most details of the miller maid’s looks, Schubert may be suggesting that the mill hand is not in love with this woman, but more in love with the idea of loving her. Of course, this is just one scholar’s take on the absence of the poems, but I still thought it was interesting.
When I first began researching Schubert’s life during the time he was composing Die schöne Müllerin, I realized just how accurate Ernst Hilmar was when he claimed: “To write about Schubert today requires dealing with fragments...” Although I was initially frustrated with the lack of continuity when it came to specific dates of events in Schubert’s life, such as when Die schöne Müllerin, was composed, I eventually found myself more interested in his biographical information than I was in his actual composition. While I mainly focused on the few years surrounding Die schöne Müllerin’s genesis, I found that the details surrounding his illnesses and how they shaped his life grabbed my attention.