SCHUBERT'S WINTERREISE AND
SCHWANENGESANG sung by GEORGE PARKER (baritone)
Winterreise (Winter Journey):
Auf dem Flusse (On the Stream) Ruckblick (Looking Back) Irrlicht (Will o' the Wisp) Rast (Rest)
Fruhlingstraum (Dream of Spring) Einsamkeit (Loneliness) Die Post (The Post)
Der greise Kopf (The Grey Head)
THE WORDS of the ' Winter Journey', composed in the last year of Schubert's short life, were by Wilhelm Müller, the poet of the earlier cycle 'The Fair Maid of the Mill '. The sentiment is sombre, and Schubert has poured into the music all the poignant emotion of which he had so rich a store.
The twenty-four poems are really stanzas in a complete poem in continuous form dealing with the thoughts and observations of an introspective traveller making a journey in winter. He bids farewell before setting out in the bitter night, sees a weathervane and compares it with his love, bids his tears freeze, for winter has killed the earth he knew. He recalls a tree on which he carved her name, imagines his tears as a torrent running madly beneath the frozen surface. He hurries from the town, looks back, is diverted by a will-o'-the-wisp from his track, and seeks shelter in a charcoal-burner's hut, there dreaming of spring. He wakes to loneliness, hears with bitterness the postman's horn, reflects on old age and the grave and bequeaths his bones to the raven to pick. A falling leaf is a symbol of lost hope, he hears dogs barking in the sleeping village, and day breaks with a rage that is echoed in his heart. Illusion leads him from his way, but the signpost leading to an inn puts him right. He summons the courage of resignation ; the three suns of Faith, Hope, and Charity mock him ; he meets a wretched hurdy-gurdy man more miserable than himself and resolves to cast in his lot with him.
The extreme beauty of the music, of course, redeems the apparent gloom of the text, of which the above is a bare and scarcely fair impression. At the same time, Schubert does seem to have been considerably moody and out of health at the time, and it may be he chose to set Müller's poems for that reason. His friend Spaun goes so far as to assert that the excitement in which he -composed these songs contributed to the fact of his death a few months later.