Die schöne Müllerin (German pronunciation: [diː ˈʃøːnə ˈmʏlɐʁɪn],"The Fair Maid of the Mill", Op.

The piano part bears much of the expressive burden of the work, and is only seldom a mere 'accompaniment' to the singer.

Müller published twenty-five poems in the first fascicule (1821) of Sieben und siebzig Gedichten aus den nachgelassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten (Seventy-seven Poems from the Posthumous Papers of an Itinerant Hornist").

There are twenty songs in the cycle, around half in simple strophic form, and they move from cheerful optimism to despair and tragedy.

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.

The Diabelli edition of 1830 in a facsimile score, with notes by Walther Dürr, was published (1996) by Bärenreiter.