Die schöne Müllerin (The Maid of the Mill)

haydnguy · #31 23-03-09, 01:13 PM

Quote:

The note of triumphant fulfilment sounds only twice in the cycle: first in Mein, when the young miller for the moment believes that his love is understood and returned, and again in this song, at the words: 'The spring has come, the winter is over!' And between these two points the whole work is, in a philosophical sense, suspended. For Die schöne Mullerin is not a sort of pastoral love story. It is a parable on a favourite Romantic theme, the belief that a true and pure ideal love can never find its fulfilment on earth. It is about Romantic longing which is its own reward, because it can only be satisfied in death. The young miller's love finds its fulfilment only when his love thinks in her heart 'He was true to me'. Then, at last, spring has come.

Trockne Blumen is thus the true climax of the whole work. Schubert gives to its closing couplet all the emotional emphasis he can. And he does so by a process of rhythmic elaboration, so that within one unifying Bewegung the music moves from the deadness of winter, in the bare opening minor chords, to a wonderful burgeoning.

Trockne Blumen

Ihr Blümlein alle,
Die sie mir gab,
Euch soll man legen
Mit mir ins Grab.

Wie seht ihr alle
Mich an so weh,
Als ob ihr wüßtet,
Wie mir gescheh?

Ihr Blümlein alle,
Wie welk, wie blaß?
Ihr Blümlein alle,
Wovon so naß?

Ach, Tränen machen
Nicht maiengrün,
Machen tote Liebe
Nicht wieder blühn.

Und Lenz wird kommen,
Und Winter wird gehn,
Und Blümlein werden
Im Grase stehn.

Und Blümlein liegen
In meinem Grab,
Die Blümlein alle,
Die sie mir gab.

Und wenn sie wandelt
Am Hügel vorbei
Und denkt im Herzen:
Der meint' es treu!

Dann, Blümlein alle,
Heraus, heraus!
Der Mai ist kommen,
Der Winter ist aus.

[ame]http://www.classicalmusicforum.net/music/19-Die-schone-Mullerin.mp3[/ame]

Dry flowers

All you little flowers,
That she gave me,
You shall lie
With me in my grave.

Why do you all look
At me so sadly,
As if you had known
What would happen to me?

You little flowers all,
How wilted, how pale!
You little flowers all,
Why so moist?

Ah, tears will not make
the green of May,
Will not make dead love
bloom again.

And Spring will come,
And Winter will go,
And flowers will
grow in the grass.

And flowers will lie
in my grave,
all the flowers
That she gave me.

And when she wanders
Past the hill
And thinks in her heart:
His feelings were true!

Then, all you little flowers,
Come out, come out,
May has come,
Winter is over.

haydnguy · #32 24-03-09, 08:56 AM

Quote:

We have taken or leave of the miller's daughter, but the story cannot end here. Schubert and Müller have to show events in their cosmic perspective, to return to the mood of irony and restraint after the passionate involvement of Trockne Blumen. So we take up again the unfinished business between the young miller and the brook, and true protagonists, which began with Wohin? and continued with Danksagung an den Bach. We return to G major/minor, so often associated by Schubert with the death and dissolution; to the ambiguities of the young miller's attitude towards his fate, and to Schubert's infinitely sublte sense of melodic and harmonic variation within a broadly ternary form.

Der Müller und der Bach

Der Müller:
Wo ein treues Herze
In Liebe vergeht,
Da welken die Lilien
Auf jedem Beet;

Da muß in die Wolken
Der Vollmond gehn,
Damit seine Tränen
Die Menschen nicht sehn;

Da halten die Englein
Die Augen sich zu
Und schluchzen und singen
Die Seele zur Ruh'.

Der Bach:
Und wenn sich die Liebe
Dem Schmerz entringt,
Ein Sternlein, ein neues,
Am Himmel erblinkt;

Da springen drei Rosen,
Halb rot und halb weiß,
Die welken nicht wieder,
Aus Dornenreis.

Und die Engelein schneiden
Die Flügel sich ab
Und gehn alle Morgen
Zur Erde hinab.

Der Müller:
Ach Bächlein, liebes Bächlein,
Du meinst es so gut:
Ach Bächlein, aber weißt du,
Wie Liebe tut?

Ach unten, da unten
Die kühle Ruh!
Ach Bächlein, liebes Bächlein,
So singe nur zu.

[ame]http://www.classicalmusicforum.net/music/20-Die-schone-Mullerin.mp3[/ame]

The Miller and the Brook

The Miller:
Where a true heart
Wastes away in love,
There wilt the lilies
In every bed;

Then into the clouds must
The full moon go,
So that her tears
Men do not see;

Then angels
shut their eyes
And sob and sing
to rest the soul.

The Brook:
And when Love
conquers pain,
a little star, a new one,
shines in Heaven;

three roses,
half red and half white,
which never wilt,
spring up on thorny stalks.

And the angels cut
their wings right off
and go every morning
down to Earth.

The Miller:
Ah, brooklet, dear brook,
You mean it so well,
Ah, brooklet, but do you know,
What love does?

Ah, under, yes under,
is cool rest!
Ah, brooklet, dear brook,
please just sing on.

haydnguy · #33 24-03-09, 09:15 AM

Quote:

The last song is a Nachgesang, an epilogue. The miller has found 'constancy and truth' at last, in death; the brook's lullaby has the sweetness of fulfilment. This conclusion, however Romantically orthodox, must have seemed a trifle bland even in the 1820's to sophisticated listners. Müller was careful to dissociate himself from it in his verse epilogue, declaring that he was not to be held responsible for the brook's 'watery funeral oration'. Schubert seems to have had no such reservations. He lavishes on the song the loveliest of his cradle music. It is true, however, that the strophic form itself is a kind of distancing, enabling him to frame the song within the context of the folksong tradition.

There is a significant contrast here with the end of Winterreise, which moves steadily towards isolation and alienation rather than death, and culiminates in a song which faces reality with a bleak stoic resolution. Des Baches Wiegenlied moves gently forward at the same pace and Bewegung for some 120 bars, and so long a strophic song runs a certain risk of monotony. But the secret of the song's greatness is the shape of the strophe, which culminates at bar 16 in a rocking motif first given out by the piano. This seems to embody the identity of singer and stream, and is wonderfully enhanced by the flattened sixth at bar 19. The music is so enchanting that we return to the beginning of each verse with a fresh sense of anticipation.

Des Baches Wiegenlied

Gute Ruh, gute Ruh!
Tu die Augen zu!
Wandrer, du müder, du bist zu Haus.
Die Treu' ist hier,
Sollst liegen bei mir,
Bis das Meer will trinken die Bächlein aus.

Will betten dich kühl
Auf weichem Pfühl
In dem blauen kristallenen Kämmerlein.
Heran, heran,
Was wiegen kann,
Woget und wieget den Knaben mir ein!

Wenn ein Jagdhorn schallt
Aus dem grünen Wald,
Will ich sausen und brausen wohl um dich her.
Blickt nicht herein,
Blaue Blümelein!
Ihr macht meinem Schläfer die Träume so schwer.

Hinweg, hinweg
Von dem Mühlensteg,
Hinweg, hinweg,
Böses Mägdelein!
Daß ihn dein Schatten nicht weckt!
Wirf mir herein
Dein Tüchlein fein,
Daß ich die Augen ihm halte bedeckt!

Gute Nacht, gute Nacht!
Bis alles wacht,
Schlaf aus deine Freude, schlaf aus dein Leid!
Der Vollmond steigt,
Der Nebel weicht,
Und der Himmel da oben, wie ist er so weit!

[ame]http://www.classicalmusicforum.net/music/21-Die-schone-Mullerin.mp3[/ame]

The Brook's Lullaby

Good rest, good rest,
Close your eyes!
Wanderer, tired one, you are home.
Fidelity is here,
You shall lie by me,
Until the sea drinks the brooklet dry.

I will bed you cool
On a soft pillow,
In the blue crystal room,
Come, come,
Whatever can lull,
rock and lap my boy to sleep!

When a hunting-horn sounds
From the green forest,
I will roar and rush around you.
Don't look in,
Blue flowerets!
You make my sleeper's dreams so troubled!

Away, away
From the mill-path,
Away, away,
hateful girl!
That your shadow might not wake him.
Throw in to me
Your fine handkerchief,
That I may cover his eyes with it!

Good night, good night,
Until all awake,
Sleep out your joy, sleep out your pain!
The full moon climbs,
The mist fades away,
and the heavens above, how wide they are!