In this concert, Franz Schubert’s 1823 song-cycle Die schöne müllerin (‘The Fair Maid of the Mill’), based on 20 poems by Wilhelm Müller, is to be performed by Kevork Tavityan (baritone) and Jerfi Aji (piano). This and Schubert’s later song-cycle Winterreise (‘Winter Journey’) are seen as ‘a pinnacle of the lied repertoire’.
Wikipedia describes the story told by the various songs in the following words: ‘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 colour of a ribbon he gave the girl. In his anguish, he experiences an obsession with the colour green, then an extravagant death fantasy in which flowers sprout from his grave to express his undying love. … In the end, the young man despairs and presumably drowns himself in the brook. The last number is a lullaby sung by the brook.’
Having heard the Kevork Tavityan – Jerfi Aji duo perform, I can safely predict that this will be a performance worth going to.
Issue 66, December 2023
Turkey’s Centenary Issue
