It is both a spiritual and an emotional journey.
Schubert’s famous “Die schöne Müllerin” is a song-cycle about a young man’s search for love. He finds echoes of all his moods in a river as it travels through an ever-changing landscape.
The river in fact gives centrality to the story.
We begin at the source. Schubert’s rippling musical accompaniments to the songs suggest the flowing of water and provide many visual images for the paintings. Eventually we arrive at the mill itself and the “femme fatale”. However, her infatuation with the dark figure of “The Hunter” spells disaster for the young man.
The intention of Dietrich Bohnhorst (film-maker) and Seoirse Ó Dochartaigh (painter) in their video is to feast the eyes with strong visual images mustering up as much colour and kinetic energy as possible. The paintings attempt to capture the mood of each of the twenty songs – from the opening fresh greens and blues of “Wandering” to the dark, shadowy loneliness of the final song, “Lullaby of the Brook”.
The soundtrack on the video is performed by Peter Schreier, tenor, and Konrad Ragossinig, guitar.
Access to video: https://dieschoenemuellerin.online
The paintings were first shown in the Schubertkirche in Vienna in Oct/Nov 1996.
