Songs of unrequited passion

‘The Fair Maid of the Mill’ is the English name for Franz Schubert’s song cycle ‘Die schöne Müllerin’.

This was based on twenty poems by German poet Wilhelm Müller, which spoke of unrequited passion for Felix Mendelssohn’s sister-in-law, Luise Hensel.

Schubert intended the song cycle to be for just voice and piano. Accordingly, the piano was far more than mere accompaniment. It needed to be for a performance of up to seventy minutes.

Usually sung by a tenor, Daniel Kirch from Cologne will be the tenor for a concert in the ongoing Euroclassics series. He has sung at some at Europe’s most important opera houses, such as Milan’s La Scala, while Mallorcan pianist Francesc Blanco is a one-time soloist with the Balearic Symphony Orchestra who has worked with other major names in the opera world, e.g. Spanish soprano Ainhoa Arteta.