Schubert: Winterreise (2014)

Franz Schubert's Die Winterreise, D. 911, his emotionally devastated and devastating song cycle about a young man who takes off through a frozen landscape after being thrown over by his intended for a richer guy, was conceived for a tenor voice and is most often sung by tenors. But Schubert himself transposed it for baritone, and probably the best-known recording of modern times, that by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, takes advantage of the more restrained melancholy natural to the baritone voice. It's easy to think of Fischer ... Read More

Franz Schubert's Die Winterreise, D. 911, his emotionally devastated and devastating song cycle about a young man who takes off through a frozen landscape after being thrown over by his intended for a richer guy, was conceived for a tenor voice and is most often sung by tenors. But Schubert himself transposed it for baritone, and probably the best-known recording of modern times, that by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, takes advantage of the more restrained melancholy natural to the baritone voice. It's easy to think of Fischer-Dieskau when first hearing the rounded tones of Canadian baritone Gerald Finley, but really this interpretation of Die Winterreise is all his own. He applies a good deal of flexible lyricism, but at the cycle's most painful emotional moments, such as Auf dem Flusse (On the River, track 7, with emotion breaking through the explicitly corpse-like surface of the frozen river), he holds the tempo steady with uncanny effect. The overall shape of the cycle benefits from these contrasts, and... Read Less