Search - Schubert, Fischer-Dieskau, Moore :: Winterreise

Fischer-Dieskau Sings Winterreise

Robin Friedman | Washington, D.C. United States | 10/18/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Schubert's song-cycle "Winter's Journey" is wrenching music that sings of rejection, loneliness, a broken heart. The cycle describes the rejection of a young man by his beloved, his wanderings, and his probably unsuccessful attempts to find solace or redemption. For most listeners, the work ends in despondency or madness. The work is the product of Schubert's last years and consists of a setting of 24 poems by Schubert's friend, Wilhelm Muller (1794 -- 1827) who, as did Schubert, died young. Schubert's friend, the poet Johann Mayrhofer wrote of his experience with Schubert and Winterreise:



"He [Schubert] had been seriously ill for a long time; he had depressing experiences, and life's rosy color had vanished; winter had come for him. The poet's irony, rooting itself in misery, appealed to him; he expressed it in cutting tones. I was seized with pain."



Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau recorded Winterreise many times during the course of a long career. The performance on this CD dates from 1963 with Gerald Moore, Fisher-Dieskau's most frequent accompanist at the piano. The performance has been reissued as part of EMI's "Great Artists of the Century" series and sells at a modest price. It includes texts and translations of Mueller's poems, and this is important in hearing Schubert's music. Fischer-Dieskau and Moore offer an emotional performance. It is an outstanding choice for the new listener in getting to know Winterreise.



The songs in Winterreise are seemingly simple but contain great depth and complexity. The vocal line is sometimes melodic and lyrical but is more often than not declamatory, approaching the style of speech. The piano part is fused with, and frequently follows, the vocal line and adds immeasurably to the intensity of the music. Rhythmic patterns and accents change repeatedly in simple short songs which also shift, as I have suggested, between lyricism and declamation. Fischer-Dieskau's performance here is full of passion and drama, emphasizing, I think, the declamatory character of the work.



There are several different types of songs in Winterreise, and some I would like to mention as memorable in my listening. The opening song, "Good Night" opens with a repeated piano figure in the lower register, followed by a haunting four-stanza melody in which the protagonist leaves his home in the midst of night following his unsuccessful suit. It sets the stage for the entire cycle. The fifth song, "Der Lindenbaum" is perhaps the most famous single work of the cycle and, with its quivering piano figure and flowing melody, has become proverbial and a folk-song in Germany. There are two songs, the "Dream of Springtime" (no. 11) and "The Post" (no. 13) in which the protagonist temporarily sees a glimpse of hope, shown in simple melody, only to have it dashed. The song "In the Village" (no 17) is sometimes regarded as the climax of the work as the speaker contrasts his own unhappy state, as he wanders on his way with the peaceful lives of the residents of a small town.



There are several songs of deep and intense introspection, including "loneliness" (no. 12), "the hoary head" (no. 14), "last hope (no. 16), and "the tavern" (no 21). But for me the greatest moments of the cycle are those which capture the feeling of abject deterioration, disintegration, and madness, including the songs "the crow" (no. 15) and the two final songs, "phantom suns' (no 23) and "the organ-grinder (no. 24), In their free-form rhythmic and harmonic character and declamatory style, these songs reach emotional depths rare in music. They are also startingly modern.



There is room for endless exploration and listening in Winterreise, and many choices for lovers of this music. The new listener will be amply rewarded by Fischer-Dieskau and Moore in this classic performance.



Robin Friedman



The quotation from Mayrhofer, above, is taken from Arnold Feil's study, "Franz Schubert: The Lovely Miller Maiden; Winter Journey" p. 27. Feil's book explores in detail both of Schubert's great song-cycles."

Great recording! But many factual inaccuracies in this listi

D. DEGEORGE | Ellicott City, MD USA | 07/15/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The multiplicity of Fischer-Dieskau recordings has produced major confusion here on Amazon's Website. I hope I can add some clarity, but I also have some questions:



First, the audio samples do not belong to recording described under this entry Winterreise. These samples are stereo, but the CD being sold here is a 1955 monophonic recording. The audio samples also feature a performance in which the baritone takes the songs at a noticeably faster clip than on the CD featured here, as is obvious both in the listening and in the listed timings. If one clicks on the title (as opposed to the listen arrow), an entirely different album shows up with a different artist; yet these samples do sound very much like Fischer-Dieskau. Compounding the confusion, the review by Robin Friedman either (1) is misplaced here and instead should be shown among the reviews for the other Fischer-Dieskau/Gerald Moore recording on EMI from 1963 Schubert: Winterreise; or (2) Mr. Friedman succumbed to the overall confusion and attributed the wrong recording date to this recording.



This much I can report for certain: There are two EMI recordings of Die Winterreise (of which I am aware) that feature Fischer-Dieskau and Gerald Moore. The CD pictured here is the 1955 recording remastered in 2002, released under Great Recordings of the Century series, and carries the catalog number 7243 5 67928. The other is a 1963 recording (to be precise, a 1962 recording originally released in 1963) remastered in 2004, released under the similarly named Great Artists of the Century series, and carries the catalog number 7243 5 62787. (The catalog numbers change with each re-issue, but this is the situation in July 2008 with respect to the recordings offered on Amazon.) In Amazon's listing for the latter recording, all the information is correct.



I suspect that the 1962 stereo version by the same artists is the better known. Although I am a great fan of Fischer-Dieskau, Gerald Moore, and of this music, I do not pretend to profound level of discernment between these two masterful performances; but I love them both and know that both enjoy almost universal critical approval. In addition, there is a still later recording on Deutsche Grammophone with Fischer-Dieskau and Moore, not to mention several other recordings by Fischer-Dieskau with different accompanists; but I believe that it is these two EMI recordings that are generally the most prized.



Fischer-Dieskau and Moore take slightly faster tempos in almost every song in this earlier recording. Although artists often take a more reflective, and often slower, view of a given work as they get older, the two recordings being compared here are both by a relatively young man. If anything, one might say that the earlier recording is by the youthful Fischer-Dieskau, while the second is eight years later, when he could be said to be more in his prime as a mature artist; but this is far from the kind of maturity one associates with a singer in the "September of his years"; therefore, it is not surprising that his second thoughts on the work are a little more subtle than when as a younger man he felt more of a need to milk the piece. I feel that the faster tempi in the later performance give it more dramatic tension, and I also think that I hear more variety of color from Fischer-Dieskau. Still, I would be hard pressed to choose between these two performances. If in fact the recording featured under the Samples here is by Fischer-Dieskau, I'd be very interested in knowing when they were made and who the pianist is, because they are very much faster.



Although as a general rule I greatly prefer stereo to monophonic recording, I believe in this instance that it really does not make much difference. In a recital an audience member would hear the two artists quite narrowly centered, and the main contribution that stereo can make is to add some ambience. Indeed, the stereo recording from the Great Artists series, mentioned above, has very little more stereo effect than this monophonic one. If the listener desires, (s)he can add some "air" to the sound by the judicious use of digital sound processing and/or Dolby surround; the latter still puts almost all the sound in the center with just a subtle contribution from the other speakers and should not sound artificial at all. In other respects I'd say that the sound of the earlier recording is about 95% (subjectively, of course) as good as the stereo version. The only flaw with the earlier recording is that it gives the piano a ringing quality in the treble when played loudly.



If one "grew up with" the 1955 performance, chances are it is the one (s)he will prefer; and this is a fine remastering. (Both the 1955 and 1962 recordings carry the SPARS code ADD indicating that the analog tapes were remixed to a digital master before being copied to CD.) In conclusion, and considering the sonics, I give a very slightly stronger recommendation to the 1963 recording.

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