QCD 9306 - WINTERREISE

Winterreise is a true work of art. However you approach it, whether from an emotional, psychological or existential standpoint, these songs will constantly awaken new thoughts and give fresh insight. You could spend a whole life trying to grasp the many facets of this work, but it will continue to remain there - sad, radiant, perfect and unattainable - a true reflection of life itself.

Wilhelm Müller is regarded as one of the first romantic poets in Germany. His knowledge of old German poetry and folklore was considerable and he was deeply influenced by the world of the ancient Greeks. In his diary Müller once wrote that his poetry was meant to be sung, but since he himself could neither sing nor play an instrument, he hoped that some kindred soul might put music to it. Müller died at the age of 33, in 1827, and would hardly have been aware that Schubert, using this very poetry had created the first cycles of songs in the lied tradition: Die schöne Müllerin (1823) and Winterreise (1827).

The last five years of Franz Schubert's life were characterised by ill health and a sense of dispiritedness, and he died in 1828, just 31 years old. Winterreise was one of the last works Schubert wrote, and he himself described these songs as the best he had ever composed - the most gruesome, and the ones he loved above all!Winterreise is a journey to the far frontiers of the human mind, with death close by at all times, implying as it does both the possibility of freedom and of peace, as well as being that fearful point of finality, where our deepest longings - and our very soul - cease to exist. The wanderer has been deceived by his lover, and leaves both town and people. He roves around in the frozen world of the mountainous countryside, coming nearer and nearer to his own distorted and lonely inner world. Impressions along the way are torn out of context and magnified to the point where they become quite unrecognisable.

The text is the wanderer's train of thought, often coloured by self pity and gloomy insight. He compares his passionate emotions with Nature's clear, powerful images - and is closely followed through the landscape by the genius of Schubert's musical comments and harmonies. He speaks to himself, to his heart and to his tears, to the snow and the frozen river, to the town, the crow and the dogs - in his desperate resolve to believe that as long as he finds words, he will not be lost. The only meaning he finds in existence is to continue his restless wandering.

The notes of the piano are the sound of his different feelings, and at the same time a kind of greater, alter ego which he is always in touch with. There is something soothing in the recognition of our suffering in such a dialogue, and it gives a certain dimension of brightness, even in the songs where the longing for death is strongest. But in the final song the piano's tone of voice has been reduced to that of a mechanical street organ. The journey has culminated in the great void.

Winterreise is about giving up hope. There are no answers and no reconciliation or optimism. But Müller and Schubert have forced the grief of human loneliness into a poetic and musical form and thereby given us a way of experiencing it that can enrich and change our lives.

Njål Sparbo