Why I Love ‘Winterreise’
It is now over 40 years since I first sang Franz Schubert’s famous song cycle, ‘Winterreise’ (Winter’s Journey), and I am planning another foray into this snowy tale of loss and madness sometime in 2022. Consequently, I thought it might be interesting to write a bit about this magnificent work of art, and my interpretation of it. In this new series for the Edinburgh Music Review, I am going to look at some of my very favourite pieces of repertoire from my career, why I have been particularly fond of them and why they stand out, for me, as landmarks.
It is interesting that whenever I mention that I might be considering singing Winterreise, the overwhelming reaction is hugely positive. Even people I don’t know well will almost always, immediately, ask to be informed where and when the performances will take place, with a very strong sense of not wishing to miss the event, at any cost. This is naturally enormously satisfying and encouraging, but also, on reflection, extremely surprising. Why would anyone not totally steeped in the world of early 19th century Romantic music, want to come to a cycle of 24 songs, which start suicidal and get gradually more depressing and depressed, sung by a dark voice accompanied by a piano, with only a short break to stretch their legs, over a period of about 70 minutes? It is a question I often ask, since I don’t really know the answer myself, and usually the reply goes something like: “It’s so beautiful and moving. I’ve always loved Winterreise. You’ll be fabulous!”. Now, this is all very flattering and cosy, but in reality, the cycle is uniformly bleak, and what warmth there is to be found therein is generally a memory of happier times.
On further reflection, when I stop to examine what are my really favourite works of music, I find that many of these are indeed sad, bleak or tragic. It is the magic of the music that transcends the story or the message, and takes the listener to another almost subconscious level, beyond the reach of mere human tragedy. The composers have found a way to bring total contentment to the listener, despite the subject matter. I am thinking here of such works of genius as Wagner’s ‘Tristan und Isolde’, Verdi’s ‘Otello’, Puccini’s ‘La Boheme’, Bach’s great Passions, Brahms’ Requiem and Bizet’s ‘Carmen’. Not all great works have to be grim – Beethoven 7 and 9, Bruckner 4 and 8, ‘Falstaff’, Mahler 2, ‘The Magic Flute’ and ‘Parsifal’ for example - but it is nonetheless surprising how much pleasure can come from deep tragedy. Two of my most profound experiences in the theatre were Britten’s monumental tragedies, ‘Peter Grimes’ and ‘Billy Budd’.
Therefore it is not really surprising that people want to hear ‘Winterreise’, despite its bleakness, and I suppose the overwhelming magnificence of Schubert’s music takes what might be seen as slight poetry to a level never heard before or since. Let’s have a look at how this cycle came about and examine both its musical and literary influences.
The short lives of both Franz Schubert and Wilhelm Müller are forever entwined in the two great song cycles, ‘Die Schőne Müllerin’ and ‘Winterreise’, which the composer wrote, setting the poet’s words. They were born three years and hundreds of miles apart, Schubert in Vienna in 1797 and Müller in Dessau in 1794, but both died tragically young, Schubert in 1828 and Müller in 1827.
The poet led a turbulent life. His studies at Berlin University were interrupted when in 1813 he volunteered for the Prussian Army in the defence of his country against the armies of Napoleon. He fought in four battles of that campaign but returned to his studies before Napoleon’s famous defeat at Waterloo in 1815. After university he travelled in southern Germany and Italy, but returned to Dessau, firstly as a classics teacher, and then as librarian at the Imperial Library, where he remained for the rest of his life, incidentally writing much poetry. His most important works were the fictional ‘Poems of a travelling horn player’ and a collection of Songs of the Greeks, showing sympathy with the Greek nation in its struggles with Turkey. When he was in the army, stationed in Brussels, he had an affair with a married woman, was dismissed and returned to Berlin on foot, in the middle of winter. This actual winter journey must have formed the basis for his poem in two sections, ‘Winterreise’, which was published in 1824 in the second volume of the ‘Poems of a travelling horn player’.
Initially Schubert was only aware of the first part of the poem, with 12 songs, and early in 1827 he set these to music. On discovering a few weeks later that there were another 12 songs, he set to work to complete the cycle. Müller himself had changed the poem order from the original, and Schubert adopted some of the poet’s changes, and introduced some of his own. I have no doubt that the composer’s final order was inspired and in particular the sequence from ‘Der Wegweiser’ (the Signpost) to the end is brilliant. Combined with the exceptional psychological and dramatic settings of Schubert, this run to the conclusion is both heart-breaking and profound. The genius of the last song, ‘Der Leiermann’ (the Hurdy-gurdy man), both poetically and musically, is one of the miracles of music, of which more later.
The cycle was written for Schubert’s friend, the baritone, Johann Michael Vogl, who, having been born in 1768 in Steyr, Upper Austria, near Linz, moved to Vienna in 1786 to study and practice law. His singing rapidly took over, and in 1795, not long after the death of Mozart, he made his debut at the Vienna Court Opera. Soon he had a great following, both for his beautiful voice and for his acting ability, and by 1813 he was singing major roles, and had become something of a celebrity. That year, the 16-year old Schubert heard him sing Orestes in Gluck’s ‘Iphigénie en Tauride’, and the following year, Pizarro in Beethoven’s ‘Fidelio’, and he was smitten. Composer and singer met in 1817, and Vogl was greatly impressed by the young Schubert’s music. The partnership was as important in history as Britten and Pears, and Poulenc and Bernac, and a large part of Schubert’s oeuvre for piano and voice was written with Vogl in mind. They had a huge success with ‘Erlkőnig’(the Erlking), the composer’s setting of Goethe’s spooky ghost story, and indeed the first performance in 1821 was a landmark in musical history. The mature 53-year old singer was able to announce Schubert’s genius to the world, lending huge authority to the largely unknown composer. Interestingly, Goethe was sent a copy of the song, and apparently was unimpressed!
Schubert wrote his first cycle, ‘Die Schőne Müllerin’ for Vogl, and it was natural that his new cycle, ‘Winterreise’, should be sung by the baritone too. It was not published in his lifetime, but Schubert did live to hear his friend sing the whole cycle. The tragedy of his early death, at the age of 31, officially from typhoid, but now accepted either as a direct result of syphilis or mercury poisoning in a hopeless quest for a cure, is one which echoes down the centuries. As with Mozart, we can only imagine what his fertile musical genius might have given us had he lived longer.
The concept of a song cycle was itself a novelty. Beethoven’s ‘An die ferne Geliebte’, from 1816, is acknowledged to be the first ever written, and so, only 11 years later, Schubert was himself creating something quite new and innovative. ‘Die Schőne Müllerin’, written in 1823 and published the following year, had been a notable success, although its vague story of love and jealousy in a rural setting seems quite bland when compared to the traumatic visions of ‘Winterreise’, with its despair made manifest even in the first song. We learn that the protagonist is leaving town on a winter’s evening, having been apparently rejected by his girlfriend. The girl had spoken of love, and her mother even of marriage, but all is now lost, as she is to marry for money and not love. This Winterreise (winter journey) starts at the tipping point and takes us and the poet through frozen landscapes to the very edge of madness. It is interesting, semantically, that this is simply titled generically, Winterreise, and not Die Winterreise (A journey, rather than the journey). Even the title is enigmatic and non-specific. Müller’s imagination runs riot throughout, with visions, memories and metaphors abounding, and his choice of words is enormously creative.
A couple of points on performing versions. Occasionally, Schubert changes the odd word from the poet’s original, for example in the fourth song, ‘Erstarrung’ (Frozen stiff), he replaces erfroren (frozen) with erstorben (dead); there seems to be minimal difference here, and I wonder if the composer was in a hurry and misread the text. We’ll never know. More controversially, in the sixth song, Wasserflut (Flood), Schubert wrote, at one point, that the singer sings triplets while the piano plays semiquavers, with the piano part theoretically playing the last note in the bar after the singer. Some commentators have suggested this is conscious word painting on Schubert’s part – the uneven rhythm suggests the stumbling of the poet in the ice. For me, it’s too pernickety to go for this effect, and I ask my accompanist to time his final note exactly with my sung third triplet. Whole essays have been written about such controversial things in ‘Winterreise’- interesting, but, in my view, not really worth it. It comes down to personal taste, I think.
I haven’t got time here to go through all the songs in detail – there are several books available for this – but I thought I might outline how I bring the cycle to its conclusion, and how Schubert’s intentions are realised in this most profound of all cycles.
In the 20th song, ‘Der Wegweiser’ (the Signpost), I feel that the traveller has finally resigned himself to his fate. This is a journey going nowhere, and which has only one possible conclusion. He asks himself why he takes paths previously untrodden, routes which are more difficult to negotiate, as he looks for rest which he can never find. He sees signposts pointing to towns and villages, but there is one signpost that he must follow. It stands implacably before him, and he must follow it down a road from which no one has returned. It’s a very simple text, with a clear meaning, but its simplicity is quite profound, and marks the point at which he realises what must be, must be.
Like much of Müller’s poetry, it’s all terribly high Romantic stuff, and I know my old mother would have told him to pull himself together, it’s only a sad love story, get a grip etc. Yet the simplicity of the verse, combined with the sparse bleakness of Schubert’s music, somehow transport us to an understanding of the human condition with a clarity rarely seen or heard.
The next song, ‘Das Wirtshaus’ (the Inn), is I think one of the most moving songs ever written, again using a simple poetic device to take the listener to a place of deep sorrow. A chorale-like introduction on the piano leads the singer into a graveyard, where he mistakes the graves for an inviting hotel, and the green wreaths for inn signs. The graves become rooms to let, but they are all full, and he turns away, exhausted, with only his walking staff to help him on his way. When the singer says “are all the rooms in this inn full? I’m weary, to the point of collapse”, he builds up to a top note (in my transposition an E flat) on the word ‘matt’ (weary). Schubert makes the ‘matt’ a climax of utter exhaustion, and the singer can use all his technical skills to convey this sense of despair and loneliness. I use a mixture of falsetto and head voice, along with a touch of rubato (a tiny suspension of rhythm), to express the utter weariness which has set in.
Brilliantly, the next song, ‘Mut’ (Courage), tries for the last time to break the mood of gloom and inevitability which has set in. A blustery winter’s day arouses the poet’s last energies, as he fights against the wind and snow, and he roars in the face of the gale that man’s indomitable spirit will prevail. If there are no gods left on earth, then we ourselves are Gods!
No sooner has the storm died down than his bluster is seen to be useless. The music slows down, and he is gripped by a delusion that three suns have risen in the sky after the gale has blown away. The suns burn into his soul. Yes, he says, he used to own three suns, but two of them have set. If only the last would sink down, he would be left blissfully in the dark. The music rises and falls, and as it fades away, his grasp on reality slips away too.
He stumbles by on the outskirts of a village. As the village dogs growl at him, he notices an old tramp, standing on the ice, playing a hurdy-gurdy, that ancient instrument beloved of wandering minstrels. No one listens, no one pays him any attention. The poet asks if he will play his instrument to accompany his songs, so we are left with not one, but two, sad lonely men, lost in a world without colour or joy, and yet we come out at the end somehow inspired by this grim fate, to see that even deep sorrow and despair can produce beauty and hope.
What a marvellous ending to this great cycle this is. Müller’s inspired vision of loneliness and despair, allied to Schubert’s bleak evocation of the drone of the old man’s hurdy-gurdy, provide the perfect conclusion to this sad tale. Nearly two centuries after Schubert’s untimely death, we are still able to respond to his genius, and to lament his early departure.
