Juraj Stanik I Wonder

When deciding on the repertoire for his début recital, James Newby’s first choice fell on An die ferne Geliebte, songs that he had been performing ever since the beginning of his career. But Beethoven’s song cycle – and perhaps even more so the quasi-operatic Adelaide – also sets a tone for the entire programme, that of longing and of wanting to be elsewhere, near the distant beloved. These are emotions that Schubert, perhaps more than any other composer, has plumbed in depth, and Newby went on to select five of his songs that in various ways depict the restlessness and loneliness of the eternal wanderer.Mahler is another composer who knew something about longing – for instance that it can be deadly, which he demonstrated with his Zu Straßburg auf der Schanz, in which a soldier awaits execution after trying to desert to his homeland while the piano imitates the muffled rolling of drums.

A Winter Journey is a response to, or reflection upon, the narrative in Schubert's song cycle Winterreise. A man walks out into the winter night and we slowly gain glimpses into the reasons, his state of mind, and the hazardous scene that surrounds him.