“Die schöne Müllerin” by Franz Schubert belongs with his “Winterreise” to one of the most famous song cycles in all of classical music. This adaption for guitar adds new colors and contours to these well-known songs. Quite typical of Romantic lyric, the format is filled with color symbolism and threshold motifs which indicate not only the border between dreams and reality, but also the immense longing for love of the protagonist, the miller’s farmhand.

 

The story:

There are 4 characters in this piece. The narrator of the story is the miller’s farmhand, represented by the color white, symbolizing light and the freedom he enjoys as a journeyman.  The miller’s farmhand is accompanied throughout all poems by “his friend” the stream. The blue of the stream naturally evokes the element of water as well as the blue flower, symbolizing Romanticism’s longing for the unattainable and infinite. The hunter, who emerges gradually in the story, is the miller’s farmhand’s adversary. His color is green: initially the color of hope and nature, it is eventually revealed to be the color of evil. The miller’s farmhand is enamored of the miller’s wife, but she turns away from him to the hunter. Because of his unrequited love, the miller’s farmhand turns to his “friend” the stream.

 

At the beginning of the 19th century, when Franz Schubert was still a child and Beethoven was already a successful and respected personality, the guitar gained in musical importance. The practice of performing selected songs from Viennese Classicism with guitar accompaniment is as old as the songs themselves. The intimate sound of the guitar is ideally suited to the music-making that was common at the time. For example, Schubert himself owned and was familiar with a guitar.