Winterreise

It is February 2021 and Berlin is unreally quiet. Snow covers the streets and muffles the sound of the few cars braving the streets of a metropolis in lockdown. Our recording location, the Staatsoper Unter der Linden, is in an equally unreal state: the hectic daily rhythm of the opera house is on hiatus, with only one opera in rehearsal, and for only one performance. And this single performance will be for an empty hall, with only cameras for audience. In the midst of this unusually quiet setting are a singer, a pianist, and a special work, Schubert’s Winterreise.

Franz Schubert’s masterpiece, his song cycle Winterreise, was written shortly before his death in 1828, at the age of only 31. On his winter journey, the singer wanders as a lost soul in harsh terrain, wracked by conflicting emotions, but consoled by his memories of kinder times. Benjamin Appl commented: "Every time I perform it, Winterreise feels like a new and different journey, depending on my own mood, the atmosphere in the hall, and of course the shared creativity with the all-important pianist. For singers, Schubert’s wanderer is a lifetime companion, yet a daunting one as we confront all the great recordings and performances that are already out there. The challenge for every singer is not to be inhibited, but to find fresh ways of understanding and transmitting both words and music to their own generation". Somehow, in Winterreise, Schubert has made space for that potential. As Benjamin Britten said: “Every time I come back to it, I am amazed not only by the extraordinary mastery of it, but by the renewal of the magic. Each time, the mystery remains”.Winterreise is Benjamin Appl’s first release for Alpha Classics as part of a multi-album deal. In this recording he is joined by long-time collaborator and pianist James Baillieu.

A new conce pt album by Leonardo Pierdomenico, in which Love and Death interact in their own merciful or lugubrious way. • Franz Liszt was fascinated by t he songs of Schubert, in a time when the recognition of the Viennese genius was at a low tide. He transcribed a subs tantial quantity of them for piano solo, sometimes merely combining the existing solo voice and accompaniment, but also creating highly elab orate versions, full of virtuoso and intricate embellishments. This album offers a selection of Schubert’s song cycle Winterreise, the journey of a disillusioned young lover into oblivion and death.

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.

In his groundbreaking Lieder cycle Winterreise, Franz Schubert brought to the fore the dark side of the yearning for happiness that channels into obsessions, fears, a sense of danger, feelings of forlornness, bleakness and exposure in hitherto unknown dimensions and with a sense of urgency. His songs for instruments can be viewed as the dissolution of Classical genre boundaries. Repetitions that create, rather like pauses, both stasis and endlessness, facilitate the present as both an experience and a consolidation of existence. Something that initially one can barely imagine soon develops into an addictive nature: we begin to understand this aural picture even without the singing – a true work of art. A kind of intellectual sorrow pervades the richly varied treatment. Attacca! As in Beethoven’s op.131, there are no breaks between the pieces. Specially composed Intermezzi create bridges between the songs and simultaneously distance themselves from them.

UN VOYAGE D’HIVER ou la rencontre inattendue entre une chanteuse de répertoires populaires et un pianiste de jazz autour du cycle de Lieder de Schubert.Un spectacle de théâtre musical inspiré par des personnages réels et imaginaires sur le thème de « La jeune fille et la mort ». Une libre rêverie née de la mise en échos des poèmes de Wilhelm Müller avec des extraits choisis du Voyage d’hiver d’Elfriede Jelinek.

13 melodies from Schubert's masterpiece fly away into the dreamlike world of singer Noëmi Waysfeld and pianist Guillaume de Chassy

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.

Im Frühjahr 1827 trug Schubert seinen Freunden erstmals den ersten Teil seines bekanntesten Liederzyklus „Winterreise“ vor. Zu dieser Zeit ging er noch davon aus, hiermit sämtliche dazugehörigen Lieder vertont zu haben. Erst später stieß er in Müllers 1824 erschienenem Bändchen „ Gedichte aus den hinterlassenen Papieren eines reisenden Waldhornisten“ auf den vollständigen Zyklus von 24 Gesängen. Daraufhin fasste er die zwölf weiteren Gedichte zu einer eigenen, die Lieder der ersten Abteilung teils paraphrasierenden, teils weiterführenden Gruppe zusammen.