Schubert / Schuback / Hagegard - Winterreise - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Schubert's music is as naive as the poet's expressions; the emotions contained in the poems are as deeply reflected in his own feelings, and these are so brought out in sound that no-one can sing or hear them without being touched to the heart. Thus read a Viennese critic's review of Winterreise, a true masterpiece published in the final year of the composer's life. Enthralled by the verse of Wilhelm Muller (1794-1827), Schubert slightly changed the order of the poems so as to make a story - of a wanderer, a homeless man, unrequited in love and disappointed by the whole word. A tale that has always prompted questions as to what degree it reflects the personal experiences of the two artists, the poet and the musician, coevals whose lives ended too soon. The motif of a vagrant, an outcast loner, was characteristic of 19th-century Romanticism, yet it seems to resonate with the feeling of solitude of those living today. Possessing a robust, colorful voice, the bass Jan Martinik inheres an immense sensitivity for expressing the intimacy of Schubert's songs. He has proved his calibre by having attained success at international competitions, as well as by having performed to great acclaim on major opera stages. Following his Supraphon debut, Martinik has recorded Winterreise, splendidly accompanied on the piano by David Marecek. The virtue of their joint music journey lies in modest simplicity and profound intimacy.

Pavol Breslik writes of his new InchFrom the very beginning, I had enormous respect for Die Winterreise, because it demands everything from the narrator. Whenever I open a page where I have set the notes aside and look at it again, I have new questions. And sometimes I don't find an answer to everything. This 'process' never stops.Inch With his 3rd Lieder Album for Orfeo, Pavol Breslik sets foot on the 'Olympus' of German Lied Gesang with Schubert's Winterreise. His internationally acclaimed recording of Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin (C737151) foreshadows that he has something to tell us also about this genius and mystical masterwork. InchWe artists are always strongly influenced by the work we are just doing. We put our entire soul into it and do our very utmost to present it to the listener. Only whoever has really felt suffering, can sing about suffering. Here, it is a question of authenticity.Inch

Winterreise, or Winter's Journey was composed in 1827, just a year before Schubert's premature death. The song cycle contains some of his greatest music - by turn highly emotional, desolate and spare, and with a sense of alienation and loss that makes the listener shudder even after repeated hearings. Schubert was especially proud of these songs, writing to his friend and fellow composer Josef von Spaun 'I will sing you a cycle of eerie songs. I am keen to see what you will make of them. They have affected me more than any other songs'. The reaction of von Spaun and those gathered to hear the first performance was one of shock. The gloom and desolation of the landscape the traveler sings of, recounting happier days in the summer of love, now love lost, the bare trees, the snow, the dogs chasing him out of the village, the crows in the trees, the organ grinder playing his haunting tune in a swirl of snow left them perplexed. Schubert's sound world here is not far removed from Mahler's Kindertotenlieder some 80 years later. If he had lived beyond his 31 years the mind boggles at what he would have produced. Winterreise stands supreme in the world of song as the greatest collection of songs ever written. Album Tracks 1. Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89) Gute Nacht 2. Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89) Die Wetterfahne 3. Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89) Geror'ne Tränen 4. Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89) Erstarrung 5. Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89) Der Lindenbaum 6. Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89) Wasserflut 7. Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89) Auf Dem Flusse 8. Winterreise, Song Cycle for Voice & Piano, D. 911 (Op. 89) Rückblick 9.