Die schöne Müllerin (The Beautiful Miller)
These factors make it easy to understand why Schubert became a central figure in the Biedermeier lifestyle. Schubert’s setting of Müller’s Die schöne Müllerin is particularly representative of this Biedermeier culture. In the cycle, the miller sets out on a journey of self-discovery that ends with him ending his life after failing to attain domestic happiness with the woman he loves.
Throughout the cycle, nature is constantly invoked as a source of wisdom and power. Is domestic bliss with the Müllerin to be the miller’s? Only the brook knows! The flowers take on importance throughout the work in addition to being an entire school in the Biedermeier art world.
In the third song, Halt!, we see the miller’s “conflicting desires… [to] both roam beyond one’s limits and to put down roots”. These two choices were at the heart of the Romantic and Biedermeier movements. We quickly find out that the miller opts to put down his domestic roots. In Danksagung an den Bach, we discover the miller is not a true romantic, in that he dares to claim he has “found” what he is looking for in the miller maid.
One of the most striking examples of the Biedermeier influence on the Müller text is found in Der Jäger (The Hunter). The miller sees the hunter as a source of domestic ruin; “Then stay in the woods, you arrogant hunter, and leave me alone with my three mill-wheels”. The main character sees the hunter as the destruction of his dreams of his potential domestic bliss. This feeling of hostility and is carried further in Eifersucht und Stolz(Jealousy and Pride) when the miller tells the brook, “he is on my banks, carving a reed whistle and playing lovely songs and dances for the children.”musical culture, but was largely composing music for the concert hall. Schubert was composing songs to be performed in the home, which could be enjoyed by amateurs and professionals alike.
The Müller text was something with which the Austrian people could understand and empathize. Even today, the listener personally connects with the miller’s desire for tranquility and family life, which may help explain why the song cycle continues to be a staple of performance repertoire nearly two hundred years after it was written.
