Canterbury Music Club

James Gilchrist, tenor

Anna Tilbrook, piano

“Die schöne Müllerin”

(“The Beautiful Maid of the Mill”)

Wilhelm Müller, poet

Franz Schubert, composer

Colyer-Fergusson Hall - The Gulbenkian Arts Centre

27^th April 2025, 3.00pm

Programme Notes

Wilhelm Müller (1794–1827), the author of the twenty poems which make up Schubert's song cycle “Die schöne Müllerin”, was a north German writer, librarian and freedom-fighter in the Napoleonic wars. In his poetry he adopted the simple speech of the common people, a fashionable contrivance at the time. In Müller's case it comes across, for the most part, as convincing and sincere, since it was based on a genuine affection for and understanding of the ways of country men and artisans. Schubert discovered one of Müller's books, “Poems from the posthumous papers of a travelling horn player”, in the study of a friend he was visiting in 1823 and was immediately attracted to a series of poems called “The beautiful maid of the mill”. Legend has it that he had composed the first songs of “Die schöne Müllerin” by the following morning, but in fact the whole cycle was not finished until the end of the year. It was published in March 1824 with a  dedication to Baron Carl von Schönstein, a tenor and one of Schubert's circle of friends in Vienna.

In this cycle, and to a lesser extent in his other Müller cycle, “Die Winterreise” of 1828, Schubert reverted to the strophic form in which the music for a verse is repeated multiple times within a song - with different lyrics. He had abandoned the strophic form in favour of the continuous style of composition more suited to settings of the intellectual and philosophical poetry of Goethe, Schiller, Mayrhofer and others during the preceding years. Instinctively he knew that strophic repeats were often preferable in the simpler literary context of “Die schöne Müllerin”. In fact, nine out of the twenty songs are strophic, but their repeated melodies are flexible enough to embrace a wide range of emotions. In the 'continuous' songs (Nos. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 15, 17, 18 and 19) Schubert develops a central poetic idea through simple but ingenious musical devices, including cross-references between songs.

It has been said that the second protagonist of the cycle, no less important than the love-sick young miller, is the brook – his constant confidant. Certainly the brook's music – burbling, chattering, occasionally becalmed, but also capable of raging in sympathy – forms a continuous background in the piano accompaniment. The result is a sense of unity on both a literary and a musical plane. 

(Thomas Radice, May 2011. Downloaded from Making Music “Music Bank”)

Songs

1. Das Wandern - Wandering

1. To stride out into the world is a joy. 2. We learn this from the restlessness of the water 3. The mill wheel is happier in motion. 4. The mill stone dances merrily. 5. Master and mistress, let your apprentice go and find his way in the world.

2. Wohin? - Whither?

Here is a bubbling brook to follow. Is this the way? Brook, I am bewitched by your bubbling, your fairy-song. Surely I’ll find a mill wheel in your path. I’ll follow.

3. Halt! – Halt!

I found a mill! Welcome, mill sounds! Beautiful house, sparkling windows, bright sun. Dear brook, is this what you meant?

 4. Danksagung an den Bach - Thanksgiving to the Brook

Is this what you meant: To the lovely maid of the mill? Oh, did I understand? Did she send you, or am I bewitched? No matter, I am here for good or ill. And for love!

5. Am Feierabend - Leisure Evening

If only I could be strong and move the world, to show her how much I love her; but I’m so weak, I can do only as much as anybody else, and she doesn’t notice me.

6. Der Neugierige - Inquisitive

Ask the flowers? Ask the Stars? No – ask my brook! But why so silent? Yes or No? Brook, does she love me?

7. Ungeduld - Impatience

1. I’ll carve it everywhere, sow it in seeds, write on every piece of paper. 2. I’ll train a starling to sing it at your window. 3. I’ll whisper it to the wind. 4. My every moment calls it out: “My Heart is Yours!”

8. Morgengruß - Morning Greeting

1. Good morning, fair maid! Why turn your head away? 2. But let me look from afar and see your lovely head peep from the window. 3. Was night so good that blue eyes and blue flowers shun the day? 4. Awake! Love calls!

9. Des Müllers Blumen - The Miller's Flowers

1. The blue flowers are mine, as they are blue like her eyes! 2. I’ll plant them under her window to whisper 3. “forget-me-not!” in the night. 4. and in the morning to gaze at her with tear-bedewed eyes.

10. Tränenregen - Shower of Tears

1. We sat by the brook gazing at the moon and stars rising in reflection. 2. But I was looking at her reflection. 3. The whole world seemed contained in the sight. The river calls “come with me!” 4. My eyes cloud with tears. She speaks.

11. Mein! - Mine!

Brook and birds, be silent!  She is MINE! All the flowers of spring and all the light of the sun are not enough. She is MINE!

12. Pause - Pause

I’ve hung my lute up on the wall with a green ribbon. My heart is too full for song! I used to sing well enough about my sadness, but my happiness is too great! Bees’ wings and the  fluttering ribbon brush the strings. Is that an echo of the old song, or a glimpse of the new?

13. Mit dem grünen Lautenbande - With the Lute's Green Ribbon

1. “What a shame to leave the lovely green ribbon there.” So here it is beloved. 2. I love green too, even though I am covered in white, and pale. 3. Tie it prettily in your hair to show me where love reigns.

14. Der Jäger - The Huntsman

1. What’s this huntsman here for? Stay away with all your noise and trampling. 2. Better, stay in the wood. You’re ruining my beloved.

15. Eifersucht und Stolz - Jealously and Pride

Are you rushing off to see off the huntsman, little brook? First turn and scold our maid. Don’t say I’m wretched – say I’m playing a reed flute for the children.

16. Die liebe Farbe - The Beloved Colour

1. Dress in green, seek green rosemary: My love loves green so. 2. Let’s join the merry hunt: I’ll hunt death. My love loves hunting so. 3. Dig me a grave in the green. My love loves green so.

17. Die böse Farbe - The Loathsome Colour

I would go out, but it’s all so green out there. Green! Why so proud and insolent? I’ll go and lie by her door in all weathers and whisper “farewell!” Her window opens at the sound of the hunting horn. Untie the ribbon in your hair! Give me your hand in goodbye.

18. Trockne Blumen - Withered Flowers

You flowers that she gave me, why so wilted? Why so damp? Tears won’t do any good. Lie with me in my grave. When she wanders the hillside and thinks of me, then bloom again.

19. Der Müller und der Bach - The Miller and the Brook

The Miller: Lilies wilt where love dies, the moon hides its tears, angels sing the broken soul to rest. The Brook: Let this heartache go, and live! New roses will rise from the thorn.  The Miller: No, beloved brook. I rest under your waves – sing on over my body.

20. Des Baches Wiegenlied - The Brook's Lullaby

1. Rest, friend, your journey’s done till the brook is drunk by the sea. 2. I’ll keep you in your crystal-blue tomb; help me rock the cradle. 3. I’ll silence the hunting horn. Don’t look, little blue flowers. 4. Don’t look, unkind girl. Throw me your scarf to cover his eyes. 5. Good night, till all shall wake. The moon is rising, the mist evaporating. And the sky is so far away.

(Programme Notes for the songs provided by James Gilchrist)

Biographies

Franz Schubert  (1797 – 1828 Vienna)                                                         Die Schöne Müllerin 1823, D795

Franz Schubert was a prolific composer and pianist. He started learning violin with his father, a schoolmaster, and piano with his older brother. Aged eleven he joined the Stadtkonvikt school where he encountered the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and regularly attended opera. After five years he returned home and worked as an assistant to his father while he studied composition with Salieri. He played piano and viola with a family ensemble and wrote his earliest string quartets. At seventeen he set Goethe’s poem Gretchen am Spinnrade to music, considered his first masterpiece and the origin of the term Lieder or "art song". Its success opened a floodgate for inspiration resulting in some 140 songs in 1815, a symphony, masses and more. At twenty he met the baritone Michael Vogl who became the interpreter of his songs, often with Schubert at the piano. In his short life Schubert composed over 600 Lieder, many other works and two song cycles Winterreise and today’s Die schöne Müllerin and is often seen as a bridge between the classical and romantic period in music.

(Sources: The Oxford Dictionary of Music, Le Petit Larousse, Calling on the Composer, and the Internet)

James Gilchrist                            

“I have come to realise that it’s the unique fusion of words and music that is singing that moves me beyond measure, and makes singing the essence of my musical self.”

At the age of eight James joined his local church choir, which marked the beginning of his vocal training. Although he chose medicine as career, he was able to sing in the choir of New College, Oxford as a boy treble and later as a tenor in the choir of King’s, Cambridge. While studying and working in medicine at the London Hospital, Whitechapel James sang professionally in groups such as The Sixteen, the Tallis Scholars and the Cardinal’s Musick both to keep sane and earn a living. At this time James also appeared regularly in choral societies up and down the country as their tenor soloist. In retrospect, this was a wonderful training, as he was learning huge quantities of repertoire, the importance of looking after one’s voice, and also how life was as a professional musician. After completing his medical exams, James found his diary full of solo engagements and received encouragement from his consultant to try his hand as a professional musician, which led to a career shift to music. While missing the medical life, James now finds fulfilment in artistic expression, and the essential role music has in all our lives.

(See James’ full informal biography and his agent’s biography at www.jamesgilchrist.co.uk/)

Anna Tilbrook

Anna Tilbrook is one of Britain’s most exciting pianists, with a considerable reputation in song recitals and chamber music. She made her debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1999 and has since become a regular performer at Europe’s major concert halls and festivals. With the  distinguished British tenor James Gilchrist in 2009 they embarked on a series of recordings  of the Schubert Song Cycles and their disc of Die Schone Müllerin received great critical acclaim and was Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, November 2009. Their recording of      Winterreise was Record of the Week in The Independent and was made Recording of the Month in the 2011 Christmas issue of BBC Music Magazine – “It is a profoundly considered reading, considered enough for some of the songs to be as penetrating as in almost any  performance I have heard.” (Michael Tanner). In 2022 Anna Tilbrook and James Gilchrist celebrated 25 years of their partnership and continue to perform & record together.

(See Anna’s full biography and discography at www.annatilbrook.co.uk/ )