The Irish playwright Samuel Beckett and composer Benjamin Britten both considered Schubert's Winterreise a favorite work, with Britten ranking it alongside Bach's B minor Mass as a peak of Western music.
Compositional Technique
A crucial structural element of Winterreise is the major-minor symbolism, where the minor mode evokes the wanderer's grim reality and the major mode represents dream, delusion, or remembered bliss.
Performer Biography
Roger Vignoles, the pianist on this recording, was inspired by Gerald Moore and trained with Paul Hamburger, becoming one of Britain's most outstanding musicians and a prolific recording artist.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Schubert's Winterreise introduced a new level of spareness, angularity, sustained godless pessimism, and obsessive exploration of a mind veering between delusion and despair, which disturbed his friends.
Composition History
The complete version of Wilhelm Müller's Winterreise poems, containing an additional twelve poems, was discovered by Schubert months after he had already set the first twelve, leading him to append the new songs.
Composition History
Schubert initially considered his song cycle, Winterreise, complete after the twelfth song, "Einsamkeit," even writing 'Finis' at the end of the manuscript.
Performer Biography
Florian Boesch, the baritone on this recording, is a leading Lieder interpreter who has performed complete Schubert cycles in Glasgow and toured Australia with Malcolm Martineau.
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R. Strauss: Vier Lieder, Op. 27, TrV 170: IV. Morgen!
