Schubert's The Fair Maid of the Mill is, of course, none other than his song cycle, Die schöne Müllerin, D. 795; the songs are all in English, and listeners should not be fooled by online services that have simply drawn the German titles from databases. The biggest news here is the fresh translation by Jeremy Sams, who until the release of this album was known for operatic translations, but the job here is so well done that it makes one want to hear more song cycles from his pen. Sams has taken liberties with the structure, ...
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Schubert's The Fair Maid of the Mill is, of course, none other than his song cycle, Die schöne Müllerin, D. 795; the songs are all in English, and listeners should not be fooled by online services that have simply drawn the German titles from databases. The biggest news here is the fresh translation by Jeremy Sams, who until the release of this album was known for operatic translations, but the job here is so well done that it makes one want to hear more song cycles from his pen. Sams has taken liberties with the structure, although not the sense, of the text in a quest for naturalness. His opening song, now titled "Somewhere," begins "A miller loves to sit and dream of somewhere," and the eighth song, "Good morning," begins with "All I did was say 'good morning,' and you turned your face away." Indeed, the "fair maid" of the album title is about as formal as Sams' language gets; he has done a wonderful job of rending the cycle into idiomatic English with vowels that lie easily in the sung line. He...
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