Schubert’s masterpiece, a song cycle portraying the physical and spiritual journey of a poet who searches through the nature of the creation the soul of the art …
Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, completed in 1827, is a set of 24 songs for voice and piano composed almost entirely using minor keys, which unlike the warm sounds of major keys often sound sad to our ears. Its mournful character reflects some of the personal trauma that Schubert himself was experiencing at the time. After years of a rather debauched life Schubert had contracted syphilis. The disease (or perhaps the treatment of it), was ultimately responsible for his death in 1828 at the age of 31.
Schubert described Winterreise as being “truly terrible, songs which have affected me more than any others”. The songs take the audience on a journey that it is clear, by the very nature of the opening song, will end fatefully. Even the title, meaning “winter’s journey”, conjures up a visual image of a cold and dark landscape.
The lyrics are poems by Wilhelm Müller and tell the story of a lonely traveller who ventures out into the snow on a journey to rid himself of his lost love. Along the way he experiences a turmoil of different emotions, mostly ranging from despair to greater despair.
