Winterreise, or Winter's Journey was composed in 1827, just a year before Schubert's premature death. The song cycle contains some of his greatest music - by turn highly emotional, desolate and spare, and with a sense of alienation and loss that makes the listener shudder even after repeated hearings. Schubert was especially proud of these songs, writing to his friend and fellow composer Josef von Spaun: 'I will sing you a cycle of eerie songs. I am keen to see what you will make of them. They have affected me more than any other songs'. The reaction of von Spaun and those gathered to hear the first performance was one of shock. The gloom and desolation of the landscape the traveler sings of, recounting happier days in the summer of love, now love lost, the bare trees, the snow, the dogs chasing him out of the village, the crows in the trees, the organ grinder playing his haunting tune in a swirl of snow left them perplexed. Schubert's sound world here is not far removed from Mahler's Kindertotenlieder some 80 years later. If he had lived beyond his 31 years the mind boggles at what he would have produced. Winterreise stands supreme in the world of song as the greatest collection of songs ever written.
1 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Gute Nacht
2 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Die Wetterfahne
3 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Geror'ne Tränen
4 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Erstarrung
5 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Der Lindenbaum
6 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Wasserflut
7 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Auf Dem Flusse
8 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Rückblick
9 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Irrlicht
10 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Rast
11 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Frühlingstraum
12 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Einsamkeit
13 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Die Post
14 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Der Greise Kopf
15 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Die Krähe
16 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Letzte Hoffnung
17 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Im Dorfe
18 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Der Stürmische Morgen
19 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Täuschung
20 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Der Wegweiser
21 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Das Wirtshaus
22 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Mut
23 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Die Nebensonnen
24 Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89): Der Leiermann
Winterreise, or Winter's Journey was composed in 1827, just a year before Schubert's premature death. The song cycle contains some of his greatest music - by turn highly emotional, desolate and spare, and with a sense of alienation and loss that makes the listener shudder even after repeated hearings. Schubert was especially proud of these songs, writing to his friend and fellow composer Josef von Spaun: 'I will sing you a cycle of eerie songs. I am keen to see what you will make of them. They have affected me more than any other songs'. The reaction of von Spaun and those gathered to hear the first performance was one of shock. The gloom and desolation of the landscape the traveler sings of, recounting happier days in the summer of love, now love lost, the bare trees, the snow, the dogs chasing him out of the village, the crows in the trees, the organ grinder playing his haunting tune in a swirl of snow left them perplexed. Schubert's sound world here is not far removed from Mahler's Kindertotenlieder some 80 years later. If he had lived beyond his 31 years the mind boggles at what he would have produced. Winterreise stands supreme in the world of song as the greatest collection of songs ever written.
