Background
Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Müller was born in Dessau, Germany on October 7, 1794.
( Winterreise is perhaps the greatest song cycle ever...)
Winterreise is perhaps the greatest song cycle ever written. Franz Schubert set to music the evocative poetry of his contemporary, German lyricist Wilhelm Müller. It is a heart-rending portrayal of a winter journey full of misery and woe. This striking and unique multimedia volume brings together the achievements of Schubert and Müller with new interpretations by present-day musicians, scholars, and a photographer. The volume includes: o the complete German text of Wilhelm Müllers twenty-four poems o a new English translation of the poems by Louise McClelland Urban o a foreword by Pulitzer Prizewinning American composer John Harbison o an introductory essay by renowned Schubert scholar Susan Youens o ninety-two stunning black and white photographs of a winters journey by Katrin Talbot o a compact-disc recording of the Winterreise song cycle performed by baritone Paul Rowe and pianist Martha Fischer.
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Johann Ludwig Wilhelm Müller was born in Dessau, Germany on October 7, 1794.
Müller studied at the University of Berlin, where he devoted himself largely to the classics. He was interested also in German medieval poetry and shared the general romantic tendencies of the age. He interrupted his studies to volunteer for duty in the "Wars of Liberation" against Napoleon (1813 - 1814).
In 1818 he spent considerable time in Rome, conceiving a warm affection for Italian life. On his return he became a teacher in the Gymnasium at Dessau, functioning also as ducal librarian there.
Müller's outstanding contributions to German literature are two: he helped to lead the German lyric toward the simplicity of the folk-song style, and in his Lieder der Griechen (1821-1824; "Songs of the Greeks"), he became the outstanding exponent of literary Philhellenism in Germany. In these songs, inspired by the ill-fated revolt of the Greeks against Turkey, he is a frankly political, propagandistic writer. His pure lyrics, which owe much to the famous collection of Ludwig von Arnim and Clemens Brentano, Des Knaben Wunderhorn (1806 - 1808) ("The Youth's Magic Horn"), are best represented by his Gedichte aus den hinterlassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten (2 vols. , 1821-1824; "Poems from the Posthumous Papers of a Traveling Bugler").
Two of the cycles included in these volumes, Die schöne Müllerin ("The Lovely Miller Maiden") and Winterreise ("Winter Journey"), were later set to music by Franz Schubert.
Müller's lyrics are characterized by lightness, directness, and grace. Heinrich Heine considered them unsurpassed in their own kind and acknowledged his debt to them. In Müller's development one observes a transition from romanticism to realism typical of his generation. His collection of German 17th-century poetry and his translation of Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus (1818) are also significant.
( Winterreise is perhaps the greatest song cycle ever...)
Müller's youthful love for the talented and pious Luise Hensel was not returned; in 1821 he married Adelheid Basedow. Their son, Max Müller, became a philologist of international reputation