Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig", the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in ...(+)
Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig", the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in C major, a String Quintet,
the three last piano sonatas, the opera Fierrabras, the
incidental music to the play Rosamunde, and the song
cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise. He was
remarkably prolific, writing over 1,500 works in his
short career. His compositional style progressed
rapidly throughout his short life. The largest number
of his compositions are songs for solo voice and piano
(roughly 630). Schubert also composed a considerable
number of secular works for two or more voices, namely
part songs, choruses and cantatas. He completed eight
orchestral overtures and seven complete symphonies, in
addition to fragments of six others. While he composed
no concertos, he did write three concertante works for
violin and orchestra. Schubert wrote a large body of
music for solo piano, including eleven incontrovertibly
completed sonatas and at least eleven more in varying
states of completion, numerous miscellaneous works and
many short dances, in addition to producing a large set
of works for piano four hands. He also wrote over fifty
chamber works, including some fragmentary works.
Schubert's sacred output includes seven masses, one
oratorio and one requiem, among other mass movements
and numerous smaller compositions. He completed only
eleven of his twenty stage works.
"Die schöne Müllerin" (The Fair Maid of the Mill D.
795 Op. 25 Nos. 1-20), is a song cycle by Franz
Schubert from 1823 based on 20 poems by Wilhelm
Müller. It is the first of Schubert's two seminal
cycles (preceding Winterreise), and a pinnacle of Lied
repertoire. It was composed for piano and solo singer.
The vocal part falls in the range of a tenor or soprano
voice, but is often sung by other voices, transposed to
a lower range, a precedent established by Schubert
himself. Since the protagonist is a young man,
performances by women's voices are less common. The
piano part bears much of the expressive burden of the
work, and is only seldom a mere 'accompaniment' to the
singer. A typical performance lasts around sixty to
seventy minutes.
There are twenty songs in the cycle, around half in
simple strophic form, and they move from cheerful
optimism to despair and tragedy. At the beginning of
the cycle, a young journeyman miller wanders happily
through the countryside. He comes upon a brook, which
he follows to a mill. He falls in love with the
miller's beautiful daughter (the "Müllerin" of the
title). She is out of his reach as he is only a
journeyman. He tries to impress her, but her response
seems tentative. The young man is soon supplanted in
her affections by a hunter clad in green, the color of
a ribbon he gave the girl. In his anguish, he
experiences an obsession with the color green, then an
extravagant death fantasy in which flowers sprout from
his grave to express his undying love. (See Beethoven's
"Adelaide" for a similar fantasy.) In the end, the
young man despairs and presumably drowns himself in the
brook. The last number is a lullaby sung by the
brook.
"Trockne Blumen" ("Withered Flowers"; E minor): "And
when she passes my grave, she will think 'He was true
to me!'" – in an elaborate death fantasy, the Miller
wishes to be buried with now-withered flowers the
Maiden had given him. When she sees this, she will know
his heart was faithful; the flowers will bloom again
and thus his winter will have passed. Through-composed,
the accompaniment at first represents the withered
flowers with a minimalist series of simple chords –
as the flowers bloom, the music becomes more lyrical,
and the harmony and rhythm more intricate.
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_sch%C3%B6ne_M%C3%BCl
lerin)
Although originally composed for Voice & Piano, I
created this Interpretation of "Trockne Blumen"
(Withered Flowers) from "Die schöne Müllerin" (The
Fair Maid of the Mill D.795 Op. 25 No. 18) for Flute &
Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).