Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin [CD de audio] Bo Skovhus, Helmut Deutsch and Franz Schubert

Music for the stage plays an important role in the creation of Franz Schubert. However, the greatest dramas are his two song cycles based on poems by Wilhelm Müller. In them, the voice and the piano together revive images of nature and transmit a narrative of songs whose apparent simplicity deceives their emotional depth. Both cycles are designed as imaginary journeys. 'The beautiful Müllerin' associates streams, crafts, nature and young love. It is softer and more pleasant than the cold and harsh 'Winterreise', but it is still a story of uprooting and death. In an interview on the occasion of the first publication of this recording in 1997, Bo Skovhus spoke about his intense dedication to the context of Schubert's song cycles and stressed that the composer omitted the staging of Müller's 25 poems not only to the prologue and the epilogue, but also for three more poems with an ironic tone. These did not fit into Schubert's serious general concept and disturbed the course of action. Skovhus compares the end of the cycle, 'Lullaby of the Brook', with that of 'Winterreise', the terrifying and chilling song 'Der Leiermann'. Both songs, in the end, are disconnected from the action of the narrative. But 'The Beautiful Müllerin' ends with a consoling atmosphere, in a moment of peace and with the hope of a possible life after death: '...and heaven up there, how far away it is!'.