Roderick Williams and Iain Burnside complete their survey of Schuberts song cycles with this recording of Winterreise. Composed in the late 1820s, towards the end of Schuberts tragically short life, Winterreise (Winter Journey) is a setting of twenty-four poems by Wilhelm Müller and describes a traveller leaving the town which was the home of the object of his unrequited love, to embark on a long journey, through a chill, wintry landscape, which ends in near-suicidal despair. This recording represents the culmination of a project that started back in 2015, when Williams accepted the challenge to prepare and perform all three song cycles in one season at the Wigmore Hall in London. Turning this challenge into a shared learning experience, Williams lead workshops and study days as well as numerous performances in a variety of venues. As in the case of the previous instalments (Schwanengesang and Die schöne Müllerin), also recorded at Potton Hall, Suffolk, Roderick Williams is accompanied by Iain Burnside, who plays a Steinway Model D.
Only 20 years old, Johan Dalene has already been hailed as ‘a musician of special sensibilities’ (Gramophone) in possession of ‘a rare fire’ (Diapason), and his début disc, with the concertos of Tchaikovsky and Barber, was described as ‘one of the finest violin débuts of the last decade’ in the BBC Music Magazine.
Balthasar Erben, born in Danzig in 1626, was a cosmopolitan. When he applied for the position of Kapellmeister at the main church of St. Mary in his home town at the age of 27, the council granted him a generous grant so that he could "look around the world and perfect himself as a composer". Erben was on the road in Europe for five years and visited all the centers of musical culture up to Rome.