Book contents
- The Cambridge Companion to Schubert’s Winterreise
- Cambridge Companions to Music
- The Cambridge Companion to Schubert’s Winterreise
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Pitch
- Chronology
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: An Endless Winter Journey
- Part I Schubert’s Winterreise and Its Musical Heritage
- Part II Die Winterreise: Poetic Cycle
- Part III Cultural and Historical Contexts
- Part IV Winterreise: Song Cycle
- 9 Identification in Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise
- 10 Text–Music Relationships
- 11 A Winter of Poetry: Connections Among the Songs in Schubert’s Winterreise
- 12 Discontinuity in Winterreise
- Part V Winterreise After 1827
- Appendix
- Guide to Further Reading
- Index
9 - Identification in Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise
from Part IV - Winterreise: Song Cycle
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2021
- The Cambridge Companion to Schubert’s Winterreise
- Cambridge Companions to Music
- The Cambridge Companion to Schubert’s Winterreise
- Copyright page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Music Examples
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Note on Pitch
- Chronology
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: An Endless Winter Journey
- Part I Schubert’s Winterreise and Its Musical Heritage
- Part II Die Winterreise: Poetic Cycle
- Part III Cultural and Historical Contexts
- Part IV Winterreise: Song Cycle
- 9 Identification in Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise
- 10 Text–Music Relationships
- 11 A Winter of Poetry: Connections Among the Songs in Schubert’s Winterreise
- 12 Discontinuity in Winterreise
- Part V Winterreise After 1827
- Appendix
- Guide to Further Reading
- Index
Summary
The devastating impact of Franz Schubert’s Winterreise arises from our identification with its primary persona. We walk with the wanderer, privy to his thoughts, and imagine ourselves in his shoes, psychologically associating ourselves with the authorial creation. Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin also inspires identification, but our rapport with its central character gradually grows tenuous. We witness the journeyman’s enthusiasm, but become troubled by his choices and perceptions, wondering why common sense or rationality doesn’t intervene. Both cycles set Wilhelm Müller’s poetry, feature rejected unfortunates, and address mortality. Yet we regard and respond to their focal figures differently. Die schöne Müllerin solicits sympathy for its greenhorn, encouraging us to understand his feelings and regret his unhappiness.
- Type
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- Information
- The Cambridge Companion to Schubert's ‘Winterreise' , pp. 147 - 164Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021