A live performance of Schubert’s Winterreise is always the most special of musical treats. This onstage performance, introduced by Catherine Bott and streamed from Wigmore Hall, multiplies treats further by giving us not just a single singer with piano accompanist but FOUR of them – three cracking tenors and a baritone to boot. Schubert wrote the songs for tenor voice but also transposed them for baritone.
Schubert was in poor health and heading for death (at a syphilitic 31) when he wrote the hauntingly beautiful Winterreise in 1827, but he considered this song cycle the pinnacle of his song-writing works, a relatively new art form then. Few disagree. In the 24 songs, Schubert sets to music the poems of friend Wilhelm Muller, the short verses tracing, in dramatic, fabulous moods and melodies, the fluctuating physical and emotional journeys of a jilted young man. Not knowing where to turn, all alone in his anguish and grief, the despairing, passionate youth leaves home and beloved behind to trek through ice, snow, wind and storm as the hostile elements of a bleak, unforgiving winter landscape echo the hellish, tormented journey of his rejected, dejected, hopeless being.
Tenor David Webb arranged this lovely concert to coincide with the end of his own Winter Journey – a 500-mile cycling challenge, taken on to raise funds and awareness for mental health charity MIND and for Music Minds Matter. Covid-19 denied David his planned route from Truro to London so the miles were clocked up more locally instead. As a sufferer from anxiety and depression himself, even to suicidal depths, he, like his fellow singers, hopes to debunk the belief that “blokes don’t talk about stuff” and that a stiff upper lip must prevail at all costs. Talking helps. And, like the youth in the tale, in spite of all bleakness and despair, it’s always worth keeping going and plodding on to a different place.
The singers who share this particular journey with David and with the lonely, desperate young man are expressive, dynamic tenors Alessandro Fisher and Rupert Charlesworth, and baritone Benedict Nelson. The four take verses in turn in the first and last songs, otherwise singing separate glorious songs or blocks of songs in well enunciated (generally) German.
The journey is intense from start to finish, the youth’s vacillating turmoil and confused emotions conveyed via expressive dynamic and tonal ranges and facial expression. Each singer must express the volatile, changing moods of the youth and of Nature, from passionate anger, bitter regret, deep despair and searing distress to the warmth of fond memories and sweet dreams, reflection and weary resignation, and then on with plodding perseverance. The youth’s emotional journey, whether real or metaphorical, is, of course, a universal one. Over centuries, over the world, humans have shared, and still share, his difficult journey.
The Steinway, played by Iain Burnside, is not just for accompaniment: like the singers, the piano has a captivating, melodic voice in its own right with its own special part to play in this musical conversation. By creating atmospheric images that mirror the contrasting moods in nature and landscape and in the physical and emotional journeys of the young man, the piano’s voice enhances the storytelling magnificently. From flowing river to brittle ice; from warm, sweet dreams and memories to cold, cruel harsh reality; from grating weathervane, barking dogs and strident post-horn to the final, forlorn, droning dirge of the hurdy-gurdy man, who, reviled and ignored, carries on playing all the same.
The poet’s son believed the dramatic, emotional journey conveyed in the songs was as intense as in a full-scale tragic opera. Certainly, the haunting beauty of this compelling, heartfelt tale cannot fail to move and feed the soul. Alessandro Fisher’s lyrical gem Fruhlingstraum, for instance, pulls at heartstrings and tearducts in such a way that the listener feels nothing but uplifted and inspired. Even at the most desperate of times, there are moments that make life supremely precious.
Eileen Caiger Gray
This performance is now available online for 30 days. You can find it by clicking here.
