The audience members stood to their feet, applauded and cheered loudly as Matthew Polenzani, a tenor vocalist, finished the final movement of “Die schine Müllerin” Thursday night in the Doudna Fine Arts Center Dvorak Concert Hall.

Julius Drake accompanied Polenzani, an alumnus of Eastern, on piano. Drake is a professor at Graz University for Music and the Performing Arts in Austria.

After the concert, Polenzani and Drake signed autographs on CDs and posters to a seemingly endless line of fans.

Lucus Snow, a sophomore music education major, said he planned to buy a CD. He also said his favorite part of the concert was the emotion Polenzani showed while singing the 20-movement piece.

“I thought (the song cycle) was perfect,” Snow said. “It went right along with the opera.”

Franz Schubert wrote the song cycle “Die schine Müllerin” based on the “schine Müllerin” poems by Wilhelm Müller.

The poems told a story about a miller who fell in love with his boss’s daughter. The cycle has five acts, each encompassing a new twist in the story.

The beginning of the story is about the young man, a miller, who had hopes of winning the heart of the mill owner’s daughter. But as the story progressed, the miller began to have doubts about his chances with the young woman.

In the end of the story, the young man became so depressed that he decided to take his own life.

The last movement of the piece, according to the English translation by Celia Sgroi, reads, “Sleep away your joy, sleep away your pain. The full moon rises, the mist departs, and the sky above, how vast it is!”

Polenzani said he does not normally act out the music he sings, but because “Die schine Müllerin” is based on an opera, he tried to play the part of the miller.

“I definitely feel a complete connection to every song that I sing, and it’s hard when you get to the end and he’s laying down in the water,” Polenzani said. “I mean, that’s hard stuff. I feel bad for the kid who isn’t aware that there is somebody else out there for him.”

Bonnie Irwin, the dean of the College of Arts and Humanities, said the seventh movement was her favorite part of the concert because of the amount of energy and excitement it had.

“(The song cycle) was remarkably easy to follow, I thought, even if you didn’t know German because you could tell by his emotions and the tone of his voice and the volume whether he was angry, sad, or happy,” Irwin said. “I liked the way it kind of had its ups and downs.”

Polenzani said as he sang the words were running through his head. He said he got lost in each movement as he sang it, and was not focused on moving on to the next song.

“I hope what (the audience) got from it was a real beautiful, musical, and dramatic experience and that their lives were enriched by the sound of the music, and by the quality of the music, and hopefully the quality of the playing and the singing,” Polenzani said.

Kacie Berry can be reached at 581-2812 or klshreve@eiu.edu.