Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works (mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of piano and chamber music. His major works include the art song "Erlkönig", the Piano Trout Quintet in A major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the "Great" Symphony No. 9 in C major, a String Quintet, the three last piano sonatas, the opera Fierrabras, the incidental music to the play Rosamunde, and the song cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise. He was remarkably prolific, writing over 1,500 works in his short career. His compositional style progressed rapidly throughout his short life. The largest number of his compositions are songs for solo voice and piano (roughly 630). Schubert also composed a considerable number of secular works for two or more voices, namely part songs, choruses and cantatas. He completed eight orchestral overtures and seven complete symphonies, in addition to fragments of six others. While he composed no concertos, he did write three concertante works for violin and orchestra. Schubert wrote a large body of music for solo piano, including eleven incontrovertibly completed sonatas and at least eleven more in varying states of completion, numerous miscellaneous works and many short dances, in addition to producing a large set of works for piano four hands. He also wrote over fifty chamber works, including some fragmentary works. Schubert's sacred output includes seven masses, one oratorio and one requiem, among other mass movements and numerous smaller compositions. He completed only eleven of his twenty stage works.

"Die schöne Müllerin" (The Fair Maid of the Mill D. 795 Op. 25 Nos. 1-20), is a song cycle by Franz Schubert from 1823 based on 20 poems by Wilhelm Müller. It is the first of Schubert's two seminal cycles (preceding Winterreise), and a pinnacle of Lied repertoire. It was composed for piano and solo singer. The vocal part falls in the range of a tenor or soprano voice, but is often sung by other voices, transposed to a lower range, a precedent established by Schubert himself. Since the protagonist is a young man, performances by women's voices are less common. The piano part bears much of the expressive burden of the work, and is only seldom a mere 'accompaniment' to the singer. A typical performance lasts around sixty to seventy minutes.

There are twenty songs in the cycle, around half in simple strophic form, and they move from cheerful optimism to despair and tragedy. 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 color of a ribbon he gave the girl. In his anguish, he experiences an obsession with the color green, then an extravagant death fantasy in which flowers sprout from his grave to express his undying love. (See Beethoven's "Adelaide" for a similar fantasy.) In the end, the young man despairs and presumably drowns himself in the brook. The last number is a lullaby sung by the brook.

"Der Neugierige" ("The Inquirer"; B major): "Tell me, little Brook – does she love me?" – he asks the enigmatic brook whether the Maiden loves him – Yes or No – between these two words lies his entire world. An expressive through-composed song opening with a cleverly executed musical question in the accompaniment – a rising pattern ending on a diminished chord. A slow, contemplative second section follows as the Miller interrogates the Brook, represented as always by its flowing broken triads.

Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Die_sch%C3%B6ne_M%C3%BCl lerin)

Although originally composed for Voice & Piano, I created this Interpretation of "Der Neugierige" ("The Inquirer") from "Die schöne Müllerin" (The Fair Maid of the Mill D.795 Op. 25 No. 6) for Flute & Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).