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Notes on the Program
By Arthur R. Smith
The cycle we hear tonight, the greatest of Schubert’s works for voice, began life as a
modest self-published set of poems by Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827), Wanderlieder von
Wilhelm Müller – Die Winterreise: In 12 Lieder was published in 1823 and presumably
intended by its author, and certainly taken by Schubert, who set these works in early
1827, as a finished set.
Müller had, however, written another 12 poems as part of his Winter’s Journey and these
were published in 1824 and discovered seven months after Schubert had closed the book
on his first setting, writing the word “Fine” in ornate script after Einsamkeit, the last song
in the original set.
Whether Schubert’s discovery of additional material, as well as Müller’s reorderding of
the earlier texts, was an inviting challenge for the composer or merely a nuisance is
unknown. His response, however, was to take the appealing, if sometimes wooden verses
of the traveler and scholar, and find in their now complete form a portrayal of loss and
madness of Shakespearean magnitude, if not of like size.
Winterreise (Schubert’s published volume omits the definite article) begins in motion, the
pianist starts the first of many varieties of the “travel music” in the cycle with repeated
eighth notes, and the vocal line introduces the protagonist in the drama, a young man,
departing at night from a town in which he has been bitterly disappointed in love. The
circumstances are unclear, and although the girl is described and referred to again in
several songs, the solitary mood of this most lonely of cycles, is well established. In fact,
we are to encounter only one other figure in Winterreise and this at journey’s end. For
the rest, the story is introspective and private, as in the leave taking in this first song.
The next setting, Die Wetterfahne, illuminates the strong distinctions that Schubert often
draws between songs. Here is a wind-tossed weather vane, used both as a symbol of
changeable love and the protagonist’s inner turmoil. It is set in strong unisons, with
climbing chromatic vocal lines, and seems temporarily to stop the flow begun in the first
song. It also sets the context of the weather in the cycle – gusty and inhospitable winds,
brought strongly to life, particularly in the piano line.
The fifth song in the set, Der Lindenbaum, is one of Schubert’s best-known works,
finding favor among many who do not know the larger and darker context. The rustling
of the few leaves left on a linden, a species much beloved of lieder poets and composers,
as well as a distant horn sound, recalls happier memories for the singer. But with one of
Schubert’s masterful and characteristic shifts between major and minor, later verses
underline the remoteness of that happiness.
The subtle and complex harmonic language of Winterreise is nowhere better illustrated
than in the seventh lied, Auf dem Flusse. By this frozen stream, we go beyond the sorrow
of the tale to detect the instability within the singer. Even in the first two lines, the music
drops a semi-tone, and soon, although the voice line is generally strophic, the piano part
becomes harmonically hazy and almost eccentric in its elaboration of what was a simple
opening. At the mention of the broken ring at the close of the fourth stanza, we are left
with a rootless silence, and little resolution comes in the remainder of the piece.
In the first version of Winterreise, the cycle ended with Einsamkeit, and thus it is
suggestive to think of the 13th lied, Die Post, as the beginning of a quasi-Part II of the
cycle. The horn call, familiar from earlier in this cycle and from many other lieder, is
here the post horn, initially a bright and welcoming sound, soon turned into a minor-key
reminder of lost love.
As the cycle draws to its close, the feel of Winterreise becomes almost unbearably
intimate. It is a measure of the greatness of the enterprise that Schubert could take this
theme of remoteness, isolation and loss, and bring it to a level in which it is impossible to
experience if as anything except personal and close up, an effect intensified as the
imagery in the final songs turns from the lost love to death and madness.
In the second to the last song, Die Nebensonnen, we are confronted with our singer, now
in the deluded light of three suns, instead of the darkness of his nighttime departure at the
beginning. Just as the hallucination is a visual distortion of a natural phenomenon, the
rhythmic character of the piece distorts the graceful commonplace feel of a dance, its
almost halting block chords bringing travel and motion nearly to a halt.
The complete halt comes in the final song in Winterreise, Der Leiermann (The HurdyGurdy Player). We finally meet the only other figure in the singer’s world and hear only
his eerie drone. How has this journey ended? Has the singer met death, has he met
himself? Is the Leiermann another illusion? The answer is found neither in the music or
texts alone, both of utmost simplicity, as is attested in composer Benjamin Britten’s
comment on Winterreise. “Sometimes one can be quite daunted when one opens the
Winterreise – there seems to be nothing on the page…”
The answer, and the greatness, of this cycle lie instead in performance. As we hear the
final question of Winterreise, “Willst zu meinen Liedern deine Leier dreh’n?” (Will you
play your hurdy-gurdy to my songs?), we wonder, in the words of the eminent
musicologist Richard Kramer, “What kinds of song are we to imagine still might be left
to sing?”