Die schöne Müllerin

The present work of transcription of the 20 songs that integrate the cycle "Die Schöne Müllerin" has been made on the basis of two ideas that have always seemed to me to be indispensable: on the one hand, to be faithful to the musical proposals of Schubert and on the other hand, to obtain an operative guitar transcription.

In order to adjust the polyphony to the possibilities of the guitar, I have often been forced to remove some notes from the chords. In these cases, I have always followed the criterion of respecting the most significant notes of each harmony in order to preserve their solidity, color and tonal function.

The most frequent deletions have been the reinforcement octaves and occasionally some sixths or sevenths. On some occasions I have had to modify the figuration of the bass or the design of some arpeggios and, in those "lieder" whose piano writing clearly surpassed the guitar's possibilities (for example in the song "Die böse Farbe"), I have substituted certain textures for others which, being assimilable by the guitar, were as close as possible to the Schubertian ones both in their design and in their musical result.

I have also avoided using technical resources of a folkloristic nature (especially certain types of "rasgueados"), so frequent in guitar writing, but absolutely distant from the aesthetics of this music.