Winterreise

It’s already a significant achievement to either sing the songs or play the piano part of Franz Schubert’s romantic song-cycle of the lonely winter wanderer.

The artists write: “On this recording, we open up the complete original music set for the voice in Franz Schubert’s “Winter Journey” to the two wind instruments oboe and bassoon. We play Winterreise from an inner conviction – it draws us in and will not let us go. After we had played some of these Lieder at home for the first time, we could not resist them. We were seized by the ambition to arrange this setting with oboe, bassoon and piano, and make it as intensive and expressive a version of Winterreise as we could. We set out to show that the two instruments breathe, even sing, just as naturally as the human voice. The poetry of Wilhelm Müller should on no account be dismissed or disregarded for that reason. On the contrary, we rely on the subconscious recall of the sung words – by us and by our listeners – in order to bring out convincingly in instrumental sound the ideas inseparably associated by Franz Schubert with Wilhelm Müller’s poetic narrative. We were carried away by the euphoria of making this music, by the gloomy, despairing mood full of yearning and desire. Where such an emotional journey can lead is evident only when one has lived it every step of the way. We all belong to one family and yet in the past we had very little opportunity to make music together. Each one of us was harnessed to their own career path and it was seldom possible for us to come together as a group. The worldwide Corona crisis has suddenly jerked us to a kind of “emergency stop”. That has allowed us to grow together again as a family, not just physically but artistically too.”

David Greco and Erin Helyard present the first Australian recording of Schubert’s masterpiece on period instruments.

SCHUBERT was working on the melodies for Winter Journey from February to October 1827. The musician was coming out of a short period that was not very conducive to creation. He lacked the literary material to stimulate his writing. The discovery of MÜLLER's first twelve poems enthralled him. He discovered the end of the cycle a few months later, thus completing the journey.

A level of sensitivity such that nowhere is good or comforting, such that only in travel does the soul find calm, and hope for the peace of eventual rest: life is lonesome, and society alien. In this recording by Zoltán Megyesi and Balázs Fülei, Schubert’s most famous song cycle can be heard in the original ordering of Wilhelm Müller’s poems, which puts this epochal masterpiece into a new light.

From the first notes, the snowy steps of "Fremd bin ich eingezogen" (As a stranger I arrived), the new recording of Schubert's "Winterreise" by the GewandhausChor makes one sit up and take notice: Choirmaster Gregor Meyer has arranged one of the most paramount lieder cycles for his "instrument", the choir, and makes virtuosic use of the possibilities offered by the ensemble's polyphony and sonority. Meyer has split the original piano part between two accordions, played here by Heidi and Uwe Steger. Their instruments are astonishingly close to the human voice, breathing, shouting, whispering, and singing. Tobias Berndt, an accomplished lied singer, takes on the baritone solo part in this recording with the choir of one of the most renowned concert halls.

Schubert's Winterreise, an absolute masterpiece of the lieder repertoire, is brought to life here by tenor Cyrille Dubois and pianist Anne Le Bozec, two performers at the height of their powers. This album, recorded under the special conditions of a harsh winter (during the Corona pandemic in 2021), brings back the painful introspection of the wanderer, all about inwardness and solitude.

Franz Schubert is perhaps the greatest of all composers of art songs. He left huge body of songs for voice and piano of amazing quality. The song cycle Winterreise stands out even among this literature. Steven Tharp sings with great understanding and sensitivity, beautifully accompanied by Janice Wenger on fortepiano. Steven Tharp has been praised by Opera News for the "bel canto flexibility and sweetness" of his voice, while the New Yorker has described his voice as "strong, free, and forward in tone, verbally sure, lyrical in utterance."

On his first recording, French baritone Edwin Crossley-Mercer is joined by pianist Yoan Héreau for a performance of Schubert's Winterreise. His mother, painter Claudine Franck was also inspired by this masterpiece. Following Mu¨ller and Schubert's inspiration, the character in this frightening story appears in each illustration, and is never the same. This traveler brings a symbolic and prophetic interpretation to everything he sees and takes us with him into the depths of the human soul, whose secrets could only be revealed by Schubert. Combining musicality, declamation and figurative art, Mirare's first CD book offers a synesthetic perception of Romantic lieder through a unique collaboration music and art.

When Franz Schubert in 1827 invited a friend to the first performance of his Winterreise, he called it "a cycle of horrifying songs". The texts that he had chosen to set were by the poet Wilhelm Müller, whose 24 poems form a psychodrama which starts with regret over a lost love but develops into an inner voyage in which a nameless Wanderer probes for answers to existential questions. There is no plot, no events in the external world: instead, we spy on fleeting emotions and thoughts. In setting these poems to music Schubert was confronting his own probable fate: Winterreise was completed the year before his death in 1828, at the age of 31, and he will have known that the syphilis he had contracted in late 1822 often led to insanity and paralysis before release in death. With this in mind, one understands why Schubert himself said that the cycle had cost him "more effort than any of my other songs".