The collaboration of Schubert and the poet Wilhelm Müller produced some of the best loved of nineteenth-century lieder - in particular the song cycle Die schöne Müllerin. Professor Youens shows us how this archetypal tale of love and rejection, which has its origins in medieval romance, Minnesong and popular German legend, is reflected in the poet's own experience, the realms of art and life intertwining. Professor Youens considers other poets' explorations of the theme of a miller maid and her suitors, and looks at other musical settings of Müller's mill poems. But above all she examines Müller's permutation of the literary legends as an exploration of erotic obsession, delusion, frenzy, disillusionment and death and the way in which Schubert crucially altered Müller's vision when the poetic cycle became a musical text.

First Published in 2003. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This guide to Schubert's much-loved song cycle explores both the music and the poetry from a variety of perspectives. It includes biography and cultural history, literary interpretation, source studies, and musical analysis. The genesis of both Wilhelm Müller's poetry, which began as a literary salon game in 1816, and the music, composed soon after Schubert discovered that he had contracted syphilis, is discussed in the first two chapters, which also include little-known information about the poet, the premier of the cycle, and Eduard Hanslick's critiques later in the nineteenth century. The chapters on the poetry discuss Müller's uneasy relationship to the tenets of Romanticism; the influence of Goethe, folk poems, and medieval poetry on Die schöne Mullerin; and provide a reading of each of the poems, which are reproduced in German and English translation. The last and lengthiest chapter consists of brief analytical commentary on each of the twenty songs in Schubert's masterpiece.

The Reader's Guide to Music is designed to provide a useful single-volume guide to the ever-increasing number of English language book-length studies in music. Each entry consists of a bibliography of some 3-20 titles and an essay in which these titles are evaluated, by an expert in the field, in light of the history of writing and scholarship on the given topic. The more than 500 entries include not just writings on major composers in music history but also the genres in which they worked (from early chant to rock and roll) and topics important to the various disciplines of music scholarship (from aesthetics to gay/lesbian musicology).

Investigates how other types of music have influenced the scope of the song cycle, from operas and symphonies to popular song --

The play of concepts and conceptual structures typical of music theory is thus not something remote from our appreciation of music, but is instead basic to it."--Jacket.

This Companion to Schubert examines the career, music, and reception of one of the most popular yet misunderstood and elusive composers. Sixteen chapters by leading Schubert scholars make up three parts. The first seeks to situate the social, cultural, and musical climate in which Schubert lived and worked, the second surveys the scope of his musical achievement, and the third charts the course of his reception from the perceptions of his contemporaries to the assessments of posterity. Myths and legends about Schubert the man are explored critically and the full range of his musical accomplishment is examined.

This text examines the confluence of Schubert’s compositions, mental state, and illness during the twilight of his life. The author goes into depth, especially concerning the Goethe songs of Mignon and Winterreise. By probing into the mind of composer, along with textual and musical analysis, we can understand the conflicts and dualities within the man and his music.

Afterlives of Romantic Intermediality addresses the manifold, even global artistic developments that were initiated by European Romantics. In the first section, the contributors show how the rising perspective of intermediality was discussed in philosophical terms and adapted itself to Romantic literature and music. In the second section, the contributors show how post-Romantic writers, visual artists, and composers have engaged with Romantic heritage. By exploring primary works that range from European arts to Latin American literature, these essays focus on the interdisciplinary developments that have emerged in literature, music, painting, film, architecture, and video art. Overall, the contributions in this volume demonstrate that intermedial connections—or sometimes the conscious lack of such connections—embody intriguing aspects of modernity and postmodernity.

The collection of essays in this volume offer an overview of Schubertian reception, interpretation and analysis. Part I surveys the issue of Schubert‘s alterity concentrating on his history and biography. Following on from the overarching dualities of Schubert explored in the first section, Part II focuses on interpretative strategies and hermeneutic positions. Part III assesses the diversity of theoretical approaches concerning Schubert‘s handling of harmony and tonality whereas the last two parts address the reception of his instrumental music and song. This volume highlights the complexity and diversity of Schubertian scholarship as well as the overarching concerns raised by discrete fields of research in this area.