Sunday Afternoon at the Opera - Schubert: Die Winterreise

Sunday Afternoon at the Opera host Keith Brown writes:

Franz Schubert's song cycle Die Winterreise ("Winter Journey," 1827) is one of the single most touching of tragedies in music. Like its predecessor , Schubert's other song cycle Die Schöne Müllerin (1823), it consists of a series of short lyrical poems by German poet Willhelm Müller (1794-1827), an exact contemporary of the composer's, who like him also didn't live very long. Actually, Schubert's wonderful musical settings preserve the poet's otherwise obscure verse for posterity. Schubert put his very soul into these songs. Not long before his own untimely death he sang the entire song cycle for a group of his friends. He shocked them with the portrayal of the step-by-step collapse of the human personality, leading to hallucination, madness, and despair. The Winter Traveler is left longing for the release to be found only in the grave.

Many of the now legendary male voices of the twentieth century recorded the complete song cycle. The acknowledged greatest interpreter of Schubert Lieder of the century, German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (1925-2012) recorded it several times over his long singing career. There's the first one in monaural sound he made in 1955, and another in stereo made in 1965 that is now regarded as having set the all-time standard. Connoisseurs of Schubert Lieder often prefer the earlier monaural one Fischer-Dieskau sang at the age of thirty--the same age as Schubert himself when he composed the music--perhaps because that youthful baritone voice was lighter and sweeter and more fully expressive of the pathos in each component song. Gerald Moore was his piano accompanist. The 1955 recording was reissued in 2016 on a Warner Classics compact disc. This vintage Fischer-Dieskau recording ought to serve as a benchmark reference for Lieder interpreters of the twenty-first century. You have heard two first-rate contemporary male voices who have recorded Winterreise: Werner Güra on Sunday, January 6, 2011, and Jonas Kaufmann on Sunday, January 16, 2011.

After you listen to the young Fischer-Dieskau's interpretation, keep listening for vocal duets, trios and quartets composed by Schubert. Fischer-Dieskau and his distinguished colleagues sopranos Elly Ameling and Janet Baker, and tenors Peter Schreier and Horst Laubenthal recorded these songs in 1973, again with Gerald Moore at the piano. With tracks from this Polydor/MHS release of all that additional vocal music, today's entire presentation amounts to a veritable Schubertiad.