Original Poems: Wilhelm Müller
Composer: Franz Schubert
Die Schöne Müllerin (or “The Fair Maid of the Mill”) is a song cycle by Franz Schubert to poems by Wilhelm Müller whose own short life encompassed virtually the same years as Schubert’s. The 20 songs deal with the love of a young miller for the daughter of the man he is working for and encompass a whole range of emotions, from the boisterousness of the opening through his attempts to impress her and the excitement of winning her (“Mein!”) to the final suicide when she deserts him for a huntsman.
Vocally the writing is simple, growing from the folk tradition, but that doesn’t prevent Schubert from characterising the miller acutely. He sets out from home to complete his apprenticeship quite the image of the lively young miller, greeting the world cheerfully in the regular verses of “Das Wandern”, following the rippling brook on the sensible premise that it will lead to a mill where he can obtain employment. His love enters at the fifth song, with the intensity building until he captures her. At the twelfth song he pauses to reflect on his good fortune and it is here we learn that green is the girl’s favourite colour. Then the huntsman enters (in green) and the young miller moves from ecstasy to the fury of jealousy and subsides to his death, with the stream ending the cycle with a lullaby, in broken phrases, but gently melodic.
This may be rather more sombre than Opera North’s habitual fare for Dewsbury lunch-time (next month Gai Paris!), but Nicholas Watts (tenor) and David Cowan (piano) ensured it received a warm welcome from the audience. Both are highly experienced members of the company, Cowan clocking up 10 years as Head of Music and Watts punctuating his career with regular appearances at Leeds, most spectacularly as Orpheus in the wonderful adaptation of Monteverdi’s great opera.
One variation they made, in the absence of translations of the German, was to pause every three or four songs to explain their subjects, only breaking the rule to present the final nine songs continuously as the young miller is carried from the heights to the depths. Nicholas Watts, always an extremely lyrical tenor, communicated the changing moods perfectly within Schubert’s simple, but profoundly moving, sound world. In fact the piano accompaniment is decidedly more elaborate than the vocal lines and David Cowan’s polished accompaniment compelled attention from the rippling of the stream to the final subdued chords.
Reviewed on 15th January 2025.
Concert repeated at the Howard Assembly Room on 19th January 2025.