Ian Bostridge Winterreise Wigmore Hall Thomas Adès

Ian Bostridge and Thomas Adès in Schubert Winterreise at the Wigmore Hall. Please read Claire Seymour's review here in Opera Today.   Like all good artists, Bostridge doesn't do autopilot but keeps searching for more. Which is the whole point of Winterreise.  The protagonist doesn't stop searching, even when he's reduced to following a beggar, or an apparition thereof.  Once it was fashionable to assume that the protagonist must go mad and die, because sensible people don't search. Now, thank goodness we realize that there's more to the human psyche than Biedermeyer home comforts. For goodness sake, think about the text ! 
Will dich im Traum nicht stören,

Wär schad’ um deine Ruh’

Britten and Pears discuss Winterreise

Vintage footage from 1968 : Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears discuss Schubert Winterreise. This certainly isn't a performance that will go down as one of the greats, for Pears's voice is pinched and fragile, but it's worth hearing to see how Britten listens to Pears and interacts with him. Pears doesn't have anything original to say, but that's fair enough, this is very informal.  Winterreise is "like a psychologist's case book" says Pears. Fruhlingstraum, he says. is "the true romantic vison"  "In his dreams", he adds, Schubert sees "adorable things and then he comes back to reality", quietly adding ""well, we all know that, don't we?".

But watch Britten unobtrusively lift the level.  "I am sure that one of the things that so shocked them at the first sing through of the piece was that he could write so beautiful a tune and then interrupt it so horribly with these famous chords". This isn't a recital, and Britten plays far more dominantly than he might in a normal performance in order to make his point. "And the most extraordinary writing of all, is in Im Dorfe" he says. "Yes, those dogs barking in the distance" says Pears. Then Britten grunts a word that sounds like "in chains...." and starts to play with a heavy, dragging pace. Perhaps the dogs are chained, but it's the protagonist who really is shackled with emotional chains.

In the photo above, look at the two piano stools together, just like in the video. The camera might have been near the curtains at right. Behind the piano is another wall of books. This is the library/music room at the Red House, preserved very much as it was when Britten and Pears lived there.

Florian Boesch Schubert Winterreise Wigmore Hall

Wintery weather for Florian Boesch's  Schubert Winterreise at the Wigmore Hall. But what bliss to hear an austere interpretation that challenged  assumptions! This wasn't "easy listening", for Boesch doesn't do superficial charm. True Lieder  devotees know their Schubert so well that they can  appreciate new perspectives.  Boesch and Roger Vignoles took an original, courageous approach which proved just how much there is yet to find in this well-known cycle.

Boesch made his point from the very first word, "Fremd", projecting it forcefully so there was no mistaking that what was to come would be comfortable. Schubert sets the word twice for emphasis. Boesch and Vignoles separate it from the rest of the phrase with the tiniest pause, so subtle you might miss it, but the chill lingers through the following images of May, love and flowers. "Nun", Boesch continues. But is this just a journey through landscape? "Nicht wählen mit der Zeit, Muß selbst den Weg mir weisen In dieser Dunkelheit". By emphasizing key words, like "Fremd" and "Was", Boesch establishes a thrust that intensifies the chilling, cutting edge in the music, often muffled by the impressionistic "snow"  imagery in the piano part.

Later on the journey, the protagonist addresses crows, trees and metereological phenomena.  In some interpretations, this is a sign of madness. Perhaps even the old beggar is a hallucination.  Boesch, however, is more humanistic, drawing his ideas from psychological theory. Wilhelm Müller, the poet, saw battle in the wars against Napoleon. He'd also overcome an unhappy love affair. A sensitive reading of his texts shows how purposeful this journey might be. "Die Liebe liebt das Wandern, Gott hat sie so gemacht".  It's not an aberration, but natural development.  Boesch's almost conversational style is understated and direct.  Lieder singing turns the listener inward, identifying with the performer rather than observing from outside. For Boesch, there are no histrionics, no exaggerated operatic mad scenes. If the protagonist is indeed insane, then so are we.

Boesch's direct, conversational style suggests a rational, though very intense  man who is working things out  from different angles.  When Boesch sings of the girl he's leaving, the tenderness in his voice suggests that she was a real person with whom he's had a genuine relationship. His anger is quite appropriate.  In "Estarrung" , the numbness the poet feeels is suggested by the quiet desperation in Boesch's voice. He listens to Vignoles play the prelude to  "Der Lindenbaum", and the mood changes. In this performance, Boesch took longer pauses than he does in his recording of Winterreise last year with Malcolm Martineau.  This creates a more contemplative effect, as if the protagonist is actively assessing the world around him and considering his options. Although the music flows between songs, Schubert purposefully changes the mood in each song. The poet cannot wallow but must keep moving forwards, pulled ahead by the piano part.  "Es war zu kalt zum Stehen".

In true Romantic fashion, Boesch's protagonist responds to Nature. "Irrlicht" was taken with such a sense of wonder that you could imagine the unearthly halo that illuminates the marsh spirits. The "Blumen in Winter" shone with deftly defined lyricism.  Because Boesch listens carefully and enunciates his words with deliberation, we too listen to how the images in this text recur, in different guises as the journey progresses. The friendly will o' the wisp reveals itself as delusion, Village dogs bark no less than three times in this text,  but eventually the Leiermann shows that they can be ignored.

Often it's assumed that Winterreise ends in death. But is death the only alternative to the values of the village? The Romantic spirit focussed on the individual, and on personal enlightenment. The protagonist in Winterreise is setting out on a road "die noch Keiner ging zurück" but that could mean that he's not the man he was before he set forth. In "Das Wirthaus" the piano part suggests a tolling death knell, but the wreaths here are for other travellers. This protagonist cannot rest. Boesch sings "Mut" defiantly. Already we hear Vignoles's playing evoke the folksy sound of a hurdy-gurdy, as the poet resolves to mock the wind and weather. The phrase "Will kein Gott auf Erden sein, sind wir selber Götter", was enunciated with deliberation.

The whole winter's journey has been leading to the final song, Der Leiermann. How carefully Boesch describes the old man, barefoot in the snow, "mit starren Fingern dreht er was er kann". Perhaps the Leiermann is an apparition, since few people might survive is such conditions. But the very fact that the Leiermann continues playing against all odds is what makes him a "Wunderlicher Alte".  Boesch intones the words as if they were strange prophecy.  In summer the Leiermann might play at village dances, but in winter he somehow continues to play, as if driven. The instrument itself is simple, droning as its handle is moved in a circular motion. It's music in a very basic form, but music nonetheless.

The protagonist wonders if he should follow. "Willst du meinen Liederen deine Leier drehn?". Boesch articulates so you clearly hear the connection between "Lieder" and "Leier". Perhaps in some circles, outsiders like the Leiermann might seem "mad" because they don't conform to convention.  Romantic period sensibilities would, however, have identified the Leiermann with the image of an artist who persists with what he believes in,  however isolated he is from society.  Boesch and Vignoles gave us at the Wigmore Hall much to contemplate. We cannot dismiss this Leiermann as mad or irrelevant any more than we can dismiss the role of Art itself.
Please also see this interview, where Boesch speaks about his unorthodox approach to Die Schöne Müllerin. Read what he says carefully, because he's extremely perceptive.  His performance at the Oxford Lieder Festival was a great artistic experience.  Boesch's ideas apply even more to Winterreise, and were, at the Wigmore Hall, expressed with great emotional conviction.

Florian Boesch - strong minded Die Schöne Müllerin

Florian Boesch is singing Schubert Die Schöne Müllerin at the Oxford Lieder Festival on Sunday 14th October. This won’t be routine. Radically challenging conventional interpretation, Boesch says “I don’t believe it ends in suicide”.

”Through performing, I've come to understand Die Schöne Müllerin in a different way”. A young miller follows a brook which leads him to a mill. There’s nothing sinister in that per se, for millstreams lead to mills and the miller is looking for work. The miller falls in love with the miller's daughter, but she falls in love with a huntsman. The last song, Des Baches Wiegenlied, is a lullaby, and it’s often assumed that the references to sleep and nightfall mean death.

“It’s much stronger than that”, says Boesch. "The miller is not schizophrenic, he's articulate and has a sophisticated inner consciousness. The Wiegenlied is not romantic simple-mindedness. It's much more profound than a love dream. I believe it is a sensitive human being's way of connecting with his inner self".
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"We know about Wilhelm Müller and we understand what an intelligent man he was. Although Müller is known today for Schubert’s setting of his poems, in his own time he was known for much more. He fought in the battles of the Prussian Resistance to Napoleon and passionately supported the Greek wars of independence from the Turks. Romanticism involved more than escapist dreams: it embraced action, freedom and progressive ideas.

Boesch refers to the work of Erwin Ringel, the Austrian psychoanalyst who studied suicide. Ringel’s theory on Presuicidal Syndrome involved three phases: constriction caused by situations in life, aggression channeled inward towards the self, and fantasies about suicide as a form of action.  Not all who think about suicide actually follow through. “In that sense” says Boesch, “we can interpret Die schöne Müllerin as a psychological dialogue.  The miller is thinking about the situation he is in and is trying to imagine how to resolve it.  Thoughtful people are always considering the possibilities before them. The miller doesn't have to be talking to a real brook. The brook is another aspect of his own personality, guiding him to make the right choices."

"So," says Boesch, "consider the text". At times of stress, the miller reflects by projecting his feelings. "In Der Müller und der Bach the dialogue is clear. The man speaks of angels singing  to rest the soul. But the Brook says Ein Sternlein, ein neues, Am Himmel erblinkt (a little star, a new one, shining in the heavens)". Then will rise three roses Die welken nicht wieder, Aus Dornenreis.. From the thorns, new growth that will never wilt. "And then, "says Boesch, the image of "die Engelein schneiden, Die Flügel sich ab und gehn alle Morgen zur Erde hinab", What is an angel without wings? A new woman, who will always return. The brook is the more mature, more positive side of the miller's mind. It's telling him that no matter how bad he feels now there will be new mornings and faithful women in the future. The brook is always moving forward, it does not stand still".

Significantly, Wilhelm Müller had a bad love affair but later married happily. Although Schubert wrote the cycle around the time he learned he had syphilis, it isn't necessarily autobiographical.  "Consider Winterreise" says Boesch. "Again, the man does not have to die or go mad."

Boesch's rationale is far more sophisticated.  "In Das Wirtshaus, the man visits the cemetery. Allhier will ich einkehren, hab' ich bei mir gedacht (here I'll settle, I thought). But he rejects death.  Nun weiter denn, nur weiter, mein treuer Wanderstab!" The walking stick leads him on, just like the brook keeps flowing. The man has many chances to stop and die but he chooses to brave the wild weather and struggle on. "Even in the beginning, there's that phrase Die Liebe liebt das Wandern, Gott hat sie so gemacht, von einem zu dem andern. God is not willing death, but Wandern".

"The word Wunder occurs three times in the cycle at critical points" says Boesch. "it means something strange, like Zauberhaft. So Der Leiermann is 'wunderlicher Alter'. Soll ich mit dir geh'n? Willst zu meinen Liedern Deine Leier dreh'n? .(should I go with you ? Do you want to play my songs be played on your hurdy-gurdy? ). The dogs that howl in Gute Nacht appear again in Der Leiermann, who struggles forward, still trying to play although his fingers are frozen. "So I believe in an inner psychological meaning in Winterreise too".

"When I was 12 years old, my grandfather gave me an LP of recited ballads by Goethe and Schiller", adds Boesch. "Two weeks after Christmas, I knew them all by heart. I was fascinated. I studied violincello for many years, but I realized that I would not be that kind of musician. My music is the text", he says decisively "I love the music of language, and expressing the meaning of words in music."

"A performance involves two people, the pianist and the singer", adds Boesch. "Malcolm Martineau is wonderful, because he's very quick to pick up on what I'm singing, and he's very fast to adjust. Although I have a clear understanding of what I want to do, in performance spontaneous ideas can develop". Sometimes Boesch feels like he's accompanying the pianist. "I like working with pianists like Martineau, Roger Vignoles and Justus Zeyen, because they can adjust so well to spontaneity".

This interview also appears in Opera Today

Christian Gerhaher Schubert Cycles Wigmore Hall

What, actually, is Lieder singing?  Christian Gerhaher's recitals at the Wigmore Hall this week are an opportunity to assess the differences between opera and Lieder. Gerhaher has been singing at the Wigmore Hall for years, so regular Lieder audiences know him well.  He shot into stardom with more mainstream opera audiences with his Wolfram in Wagner Tannhäuser at the Royal Opera House last year. (Please read my review here) Gerhaher's Wolfram was sensationally beautiful, perfectly fitting the other worldly, rarified purity that is in Wolfram's character. Few baritones have that tenor-like lightness of touch. Gerhaher's Wolfram shimmered, but Elisabeth still chose Tannhäuser. Think what Wagner meant by that.

Vocal music, almost by definition, is about meaning. One of the fundamental differences between opera and Lieder is how meaning is expressed.  It's not simply a question of refinement or detail, but of perspective. In opera, an artist creates a character.  In Lieder, the character "is" the artist himself.  In opera, a singer is expressing what the role represents in the context of the opera. In most Lieder, text is confined to a few lines from which a singer must extract maximum possible meaning . No help from plot or orchestra. Opera singer expands outwards. Lieder singing expands inwards.

The Schubert song cycles Die schöne Müllerin (D795) and Winterreise (D911) allow more context than single songs, but their narrative is internal, not external. Significantly, both are journeys, where landscape marks stages in the protagonists' inner development. Gerhaher and Huber also gave a recital of Schwanengesang (D957), but it's not actually a song cycle but a compilation put together by Schubert's publisher after his death.

Die schöne Müllerin is interpretively more challenging because of its deliberate contradictions - cheerfully babbling brooks and declarations of love. But for whom, and  by whom? The high tessitura in Die schöne Müllerin is meant to suggest the miller's  naivety. It's a complication that a light, airy baritone like Gerhaher doesn't have to contend with, so the cycle is a good test of his interpretive skills. This performance was infinitely better than his recording with budget label Arte Nova six years ago, which fortunately will be suuperseded with a new recording. Gerhaher uses his range more effectively, and is more secure shaping phrases. His singing is particularly attractive in songs like Des Müllers Blumen which could be mistaken for a love song, out of context. Yet almost from the beginning the poems hint at altogether more sinister levels. The emotional range in this cycle is much more challenging than the vocal range. In Der Jäger, the miller's jealousy erupts into anger. Gerhaher expresses this through increased volume and projection, which is effective enough, but doesn't have quite the emotional wildness that can make this song so troubling. Gerhaher's miller isn't menacing, even in Die böse Farbe with its hints of what today we'd call stalking, but a poetic dreamer. Gerhaher is pleasant, but if you want limpid sweetness, Fritz Wunderlich sings with such exquisite poise, his emotional denial is chilling.

What made this recital unusual was the inclusion of three poems from Wilhelm Müller's original set of 25, which Schubert did not set. Das Mühlenleben describes the girl at the mill, but comes between Der Neugierige and Ungeduld, which rather breaks the mood. On the other hand placing it after Am Feierabend extends that mood too long. More effective is Erster Schmerz, letzter Scherz before Der liebe Farbe and Blümlien Vergissmein after  Die böse Farbe, for the spoken poems garland the two companion songs. Gerhaher's reading of Blümlien Vergissmein was lyrical, leading smoothly into Trockne Blumen, enhancing the song.

In Winterreise the protagonist is leaving behind a relatively real world and heading into the unknown. There are far fewer clues to his psyche in the text. That's why Winterreise is so fascinating, because the possibilities are even greater.Performers have to connect to something in themselves to create an individual approach that conveys something personal to the audience.

Those who've come to Gerhaher and Lieder via Wolfram in Tannhäuser will admire the clean tone and even timbre of Gerhaher's singing.There's plenty of scenic beauty in Winterreise, and some performances I've heard make much of the external-internal interface, but Gerhaher describes rather than contemplates.  Individual songs like Frühlingstraum are beautifully modulated. Winterreise moves in stages, and the structure of this cycle is significant. The protagonist is heading somewhere, even if we don't know what will come of it. Is the Leiermann a symbol, and of what? Does the cycle end in death, madness or, even more controversial, resistance? Here, we're admiring Gerhaher's smooth technique, so for a change, it's up to us to be the servant of the music and what it might mean.

Winterreise Bostridge Uchida Wigmore Hall

I've heard Winterreise so many times over the years I've lost count. Hundreds! And I've heard Ian Bostridge and Mitsuko Uchida do Winterreise several times (their CD is good). What could be new? But my friend who has heard almost as many Winterreises as me (and as many Bostridge recitals) went to Bostridge and Uchida at the Wigmore Hall last week and heard refreshing and rethought. READ the review in Opera Today. Really good Lieder performers are doing a kind of emotional workout as they connect to the music and poetry. In fact it's much the same too for the listener. The more you put in, the more you get out.

Coming up : Pelléas et Mélisande at the Barbican - wonderful and truly Francophone, even Keenlyside. But what happens? Loud, long boo from some smartass in the audience. Someone so clever he needs to prove it to the world. Some people are only happy when they're miserable, and make sure everyone is miserable too. It was Natalie Dessay's Birthday. Extra bunches of flowers, and the whole cast and orchestra sang "Happy Birthday".

Alternative Winterreise

If a piece of music is powerful, artists will want to express how it affects them. In principle there's no reason why good music shouldn't be staged as artists, dancers and theatre people have just as much right to engage with a piece as singers and pianists.Meta-performances aren't a substitute by any means, but can help us appreciate how someone else responds. Think of Lorraine Hunt Lieberson and her hospital bed staging of Bach. She sang with extra poignancy as there was so much death in her personal life she needed to deal with. So what she did was creative.

Winterreise has inspired dozens of responses, good and bad. You don't want to see Brigitte Fassbender dressed up as a nun, surrounded by Beidermeier peasants, however well she sings (yes, it exists). But Simon Keenlyside's Winterreise with choreographer Trisha Brown sparked off new ideas for me. Keenlyside is an athlete (now married to a ballerina) so he has physical presence. In this production, he didn't dance but it was very physical, the semi-invisible dancers around him formed a kind of net which caught him when he fell. It was like he was trusting in fate - he didn't "see" the dancers but they stopped him from crashing to the ground and pushed him ever onwards. Just like the landscape in the cycle.

There's also a film of Winterreise with Christine Schäfer and Eric Schneider, which many admire passionately. I haven't seen it myself but can understand why it's such a cult, it's edgy and uncompromising. I love the audio version, which I think is a different and better performance. because her high, bright soprano brings out the eerie quality of light in the music extremely well. She sounds shockingly vulnerable and yet sharp - chilling and totally in accord with the music. Indeed I can't recommend this CD too highly. It reveals aspects of the cycle no-one else comes close to expressing. Sure, it's not the usual butch male thing, but it "needs" to be heard to bring out levels of Winterreise not usually accessed.

Years ago when Ian Bostridge and Julius Drake were fairly malleable they got talked into filming the cycle with David Alden. Alden had very definite ideas, and even judicious editing can't hide the fact that he and Bostridge/Drake didn't feel comfortable with them. This was filmed in a Victorian lunatic asylum. At one stage Bostridge writhes in a straitjacket. "Let me out of here!" his eyes seem to plead. He's got good ideas of his own, far less limiting than the "psycho" scenario around which tis film predicates. It's Alden's vision, Bostridge and Drake are just extras.

Another unusual one, which I haven't seen either but heard about from others. Winterreise mixed with The Sorrows of Young Werther, two great classics of Romantic despair. The singer is Erik Nelson Werner. Very demanding role esp. as it means switching modes, adding to the sense of disorientation.

There's also been a Black Theatre of Prague version, where a disembodied voice and piano do their thing while fleeting images in black and light flicker on the stage. I know there's at least one ballet but can't remember at this moment - prompt please? And there's Hans Zender's orchestration, with Ensemble Modern, which was a good experience live because some of the musicians move about in the hall, like a ragged village band. Better than it sounds, but not quite so interesting on audio. Everyone who listens has a different perspective (which changes all the time). So exploring alternative Winterreises is like listening to someone telling you how they feel about it. It may not be the same as what you feel, but to say "never!" is like saying, never listen to someone else's opinion. Though sometimes you get Fassbender dressed as a nun.

A Winterreise Adventure

Last night I didn't just talk Winterreise, I lived it. Just as we left James Gilchrist's recital at Kings Place it started to snow. Atmospheric, since it hardly ever snows in London.

"You call that snow," sniffed my Siberian friend. But we get excited because it only snows (or slushes) maybe once every 5 years and last year was the first serious snow for 20 years. So cheerfully we set forth. As soon as we reached the motorway, out of the dark came a sudden blizzard, which dropped 20cm of snow in 90 minutes. Because no-one is used to such conditions, it was mayhem.The wind howled like in a typhoon, except that it was freezing, throwing sheets of snow against the windscreen. Complete whiteout. Passing a big crash on the other side (4 cars 1 truck) we decided to call it quits, and as soon as we could left the car which couldn't go up a hill, and walked the rest of the way.

Scary as this journey was, it was a good experience. Everyone knows the words, but what is the deeper sensation? A singer I knew once walked across the country carrying a backpack, giving Winterreise recitals along the way. It made him feel the music more because he'd struggled on the way. For me, the blizzard made me feel how we take things for granted. The man in Winterreise looks at familiar landmarks, but they're no longer what they were.

Snow absorbs sound, but just as it deadens background hum, it lets details spring out in stark contrast. One of Jorma Hynninen's recordings captures this effect. He sings quietly, mutedly, yet sharpens certain passages : the black crow against white clouds, pregnant with snow. The post horn sounds over long distances because it doesn't blend into the background.

Snow transforms. Part of my journey went through an industrial slum, but now it was covered with a pure, white blanket. Even the metal barriers and dustbins looked magical. The man in Winterreise's feelings are painful because they're raw. As he proceeds, they change. By the end, the girl is left behind in more ways than one. Even in his deepest anguish, the man sees beauty in the landscape around him. Listen to that piano part, the images of water! Beneath the frozen ice, the river surges. Melting droplets trickle, sharp figures sparkle, like icicles. Once I heard Imogen Cooper play Winterreise so magically, it made you "feel" the cold, the dark and the flashes of light. Wolfgang Holzmair seemed to be listening, taking in what nature might have to tell the man, even though he can't quite understand.

Landscape as a mirror of emotion: an aspect of Winterreise often overlooked when we focus on the pain and intensity. As James Gilchrist said before the concert, the protagonist goes through a huge range of feelings, from bitter anger to lyrical tenderness. And in this performance, with Anna Tilbrook as pianist, he certainly showed the range of feelings involved.

Landscape in the Romantic imagination is also part of meaning. Sometimes the song Die Nebensonnen has been dismissed as evidence that the man on the journey "must" be insane because he sees three suns in the sky and relates them to his lover's eyes. On the contrary, in extreme cold, the light of the sun can refract, so it appears as multiple images. I chose this photo because it captures the way the sun in dense blizzard conditions glows with an unnatural brightness: the glare can make you snowblind. It's a natural phenomenom, but hyper real and piercing. So what, then, does the Leiermann signify? Is he an illusion or a real beggar, feral, like the deer whose tracks the man follows in the beginning. This aspect of interpretation can impact on performance.

And snow can be dangerous. Someone was supposedly killed in the accident I passed. If the man in Winterreise was bent on death, all he had to do was lie under the Lindenbaum and the cold would soon lull him forever. Significantly, he passes the graveyard and goes beyond. Maybe the man does die, or go mad, but one surprising aspect of the cycle is that he chooses to keep moving on, even though it wouldn't take much effort for him to let the snow end his troubles.

As for the recital? Thoroughly satisying! Gilchrist doesn't have one of those lusciously creamy voices that draw attention to their own beauty at the expense of the music. If it's not a glorious instrument, though, he uses it intelligently, so you're drawn to what the music might mean. There are hundreds of Winterreises to listen to, but Gilchrist makes his personal and direct.

Someone told me that this concert was being recorded for CD. The acoustic at Hall One at Kings Place is so perfect that it's a disadvantage. It's so clear that it can expose all but the best. Yet, because the hall is small, the biggest names don't often appear. So using Kings Place for making recordings offers benefits to audiences and gives recordings a nice "live" ambience.

Please see my other posts on Gilchrist, Schubert and Kings Place
Photo credit

The Things We Do For Art

Last night I dreamed of Winterreise......

The hall was hushed, a man was singing. Then he started to croon, and clicked his fingers in time to the beat. He decorated Schubert with Shooby dooby doo, smirking how well he could make the lines "rock".

Fast asleep. I leapt out of bed, landing on my ankle, twisting it so badly that it's now swelled up to my knee. I can't walk. Luckily I dosed up on prescription strength Naprosen.

The Things We Do For Art.

Goerne Eschenbach Winterreise

When Matthias Goerne was about six, he heard Winterreise and was captivated. Obviously, he was too young to understand all the complex emotions in the piece but what he recognized was that they mattered. Winterreise is so powerful that even a child, albeit a talented one, could be inspired to commit it to memory.

There have been hundreds of Winterreises at the Wigmore Hall over the years. This is an audience that knows the work bar by bar and isn't easily impressed, so when most of the house stood up in applause it was serious praise indeed. I first heard Goerne sing Winterreise some 15 years ago, near the start of his adult career (he was a child prodigy in East Germany). He was only 26, yet Irwin Gage was playing, and Alfred Brendel was listening in the stalls, rapt with attention. Goerne and Brendel became a legendary partnership, creating some of the finest Schubert performances ever produced. Their recording of Winterreise is one of the must-hear classics.

Christoph Eschenbach is a superlative Schubert performer too, so this new series of Schubert cycles at the Wigmore Hall is a significant event. Goerne and Eschenbach have already recorded Die Schöne Mullerin as part of the new Harmonia Mundi Schubert Edition. Goerne's earlier recording of that cycle is exceptional. Quite frankly, you can't "know" DsM without having heard that, because it puts paid to the myth that the cycle is sweet and innocent. Darker undercurrents almost always flow through the Romantic (see other posts on Schubert on this blog - I will write more later as Schubert is where I cut my teeth).

Goerne doesn't do mundane. With Eschenbach, he's refining his approach to Winterreise yet again, this time even more cognizant of the structural underpinnings beneath the text. Each song marks a different stage in the journey, and those stages are in themselves significant, to be savoured for what they portend. The journey starts in a huff, the protagonist impulsively dashing out of town, the wind images in Die Wetterfahne expressing turbulent confusion. Gradually the woman who caused the problem fades into a more generalised image on which the man can hang his feelings. Der Lindenbaum is a temporary halt, a short moment of calm before die kalten Winde bliesen.. Then the true impact of the words ich wendete mich nicht. sinks in.

This is a psychological journey, away from the town and its bourgeois values. The protagonist is out in the wilderness, in uncharted territory, where only animal spoor marks a path. Thus Goerne and Eschenbach employ a deliberate, watchful pace: paying close attention to each passage, every detail counts. Eschenbach even brought out the faint pre echo of the posthorn that appears as early as Der Lindenbaum. Similarly, the village dogs appear, in the rhythms that start Im Dorfe.

Landscape is important in Winterreise: it is a mirror of the protagonist's soul. Schubert builds images of nature into the piano part not merely to illustrate text, but to act as an alter ego, almost a third party commentary beyond the protagonist's highly subjective anguish. Pathetic fallacy operates, of course, for the protagonist hears his troubles reflected in the storm and swollen river, and sees frost patterns as flowers. But there's infinitely more to the idea of Nature in the Romantic imagination. It stands as a symbol of something greater than mankind, something that endures beyond the personal and immediate.

This has implications for interpretation. Some performances depend on exaggeratedly emotional singing, on the assumption that the protagonist must be mad, since he gives up civilization to follow a crazy old beggar. Thus follows the idea that the journey can only end in death. But that trivializes the whole logic behind the cycle. If the protagonist is mad, why are we so drawn into this psychodrama? Wilhelm Muller – and Schubert – wanted us to experience the journey through the man's feelings, to sympathize with why someone should choose a wilder path in life. Perhaps in more psychologically repressed times the idea of madness and death prevailed but for the Romantics angst was a code for what we now call the subconscious. The Romantic interest in emotional extremes was a reaction to the tidy elegance of classicism. Schubert's contemporaries were troubled by the world Winterreise revealed, and rightly so.

The protagonist is driven to his limits but never loses sight of the world around him, even though he interprets it in terms of himself, for example when he thinks the crow is a companion. In that sense he's not a depressive, turned entirely away from reality. Some point to Der Nebensoonen as evidence that the man must be nuts if he sees three suns in the sky. But it's a physical phenomenon that in extreme cold, the sun appears distorted in this way. For a century, we've become so used to electricity and urban living that we can't imagine such things as reality. Goerne sings with quiet, understated dignity, as if he's witnessing a miracle in nature. True, the protagonist still sees the eyes of his beloved wrought as huge cosmic images in the sky, but perhaps there's something more.

The cycle ends with the strange hurdy-gurdy of Der Leiermann. The Leier isn't a lyre, but a primitive instrument, turned rather tha actively played, making a mechanical circular sound. Can music be reduced to lesser things ? The old man is barfuß auf dem Eise, barefoot on the ice, exposed to the elements, without a shred of bourgeois respectabilty. And yet he doggedly makes his way from village to village, despite being hounded by dogs and men. Wunderliches Alte! sings the protagonist, what kind of phenomenom is this? Orpheus in rags?

Goerne sings the final sentence with overwhelming grace and wonder. Willst zu meinen Liedern Deine Lieier drehn? Will the man follow the old beggar, who perhaps once set out on a similar journey? Perhaps he's like the crow, whose companionship is coincidental not real. But the old man is human annd plays a vaguely musical instrument. Perhaps he's a symbol of the power of music, which like Nature endures whatever may happen to an individual. Throughout the cycle, the rhythms of the hurdy gurdy and lurching footsteps lurk in the shifts of pace and intensity. The Leiermann haunts the whole piece, though it takes performance of this very high standard to bring them out.