DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2021.1.34332

Abstract: The author considers L. Berger’s vocal cycle “The Beautiful Miller Maid” in the connection with the latest composition by Schubert, determined by the usage of poetic texts of W. Müller. The research subject is the system of internal linkages both in poetic texts and the music of songs of the vocal cycle: the tone logic and thematic and genre design. The author takes into account the new features of the genre Lied in Berlin singing style, which is the point of contact between a folklore song and an author’s work. The intensification of the author’s element leads to the emergence of a dialogue tensity in a text simulating a “Lied im Volkston”. In the cycle, symphonic and structure linkages become apparent  bringing it closer to the type of a vocal cycle as a diary that would be typical for the works of F. Schubert and R. Schumann. Such a design is based on the organization of the cycle around the figure of a Miller as a central character and a defining role in the cycle of images of Müller’s poetry. The analysis of the cycle allows concluding that the vocal cycle by L. Berger develops this genre in the direction of Schubert’s masterpieces far more so than Beethoven’s cycle “To the distant beloved”. The key idea of the research is as follows: the initial linkage to the play (Liederspiel) is overcome in the design of Müller and Berger, and the decisive role in this concept  is the one of the composer.   

DOI: 10.7256/2453-613X.2020.5.40359

Abstract: The research subject is the genre and symbolical specificity of the poetry cycle by Wilhelm Mueller “The Fair Maid of the Mill” which became the basis of the vocal cycle by F. Schubert. The circumstances of the cycle creation predetermine the presence of poetics of play which is determined by the fact that the plot was created as a party play (Liederspiel), and an objective orientation of authors of Mueller’s milieu towards the stylization of folk and knight poetry of the Middle Ages. The poetic cycle by Mueller is considered in the context of the traditions of romantic poetry dating back to minnesong and meistersong and reflected both in the theme and the images of the cycle, and its structure. The author analyzes the genre solution of Mueller’s cycle, connected with the presence of the plot itself and the composition framework formed by the prologue and the epilogue. The analysis of the parts out of the music concept of Schubert gives the possibility to look at the genesis of the common theme of the two cycles from a new viewpoint thus explaining the scientific novelty of the research. The author outlines additional drama and symbolical connections in the cycle which form a particular poetry-play space. The author studies esthetic and stylistic reasons which made the composer refuse some parts of the poetry cycle. It turns out that Mueller’s idea is connected with a multilayer system of “play” foundations in the development of the text, and Schubert’s solution - with the elimination of this drama range which ensures additional interconnections between “The Fair Maid of the Mill” and the later tragic cycle “The Winter Journey”.