"I like these songs better than all the rest, and someday you will too," Franz Schubert told the friends who were the first to hear his song cycle Winterreise. These lieder have always found admiring audiences, but the poetry he chose to set them to has been widely regarded as weak and trivial. Susan Youens looks not only at Schubert's music but at the poetry, drawn from the works of Wilhelm Mller, who once wrote in his diary, "perhaps there is a kindred spirit somewhere who will hear the tunes behind the words and give them back to me!"
| |||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
German lieder are among the world's most exquisite works of miniature art--one singer, one pianist, one brief poem, expressing a small but profound world in the space of a minute or two--and Franz Schubert was perhaps the greatest of all lieder composers. One of his masterworks was Die Winterreise ("The Winter Journey"), a setting of 24 poems by Wilhelm Mueller. This book may be the definitive word on that cycle. It is sure to increase the understanding of the careful reader/listener with its explanations and insights into Schubert's work.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Definitive Guide to Schubert's Masterpiece,
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Retracing a Winter's Journey: Franz Schubert's "Winterreise" (Paperback)
Susan Youens follows her excellent analyses of Schubert's lieder -- among the highlights of her work are books on "Die schoene Muellerin" in the Cambridge Music series and "Schubert's Poets and the Making of Lieder" -- with a complete analysis of *the* major song cycle, Winterreise. In this book, which is aimed at the knowledgeable layperson but which will not disappoint specialists in either poetry or musicology, Youens first deconstructs the cycle as a whole, looking at the poet, Wilhelm Mueller, and the sources of his texts; as well as giving a "macro" look at Schubert's setting of it. This first section would have been excellent enough. But then Youens analyzes each song, in both music and poetry. She finds links between the songs, helps guide the narrative, and, on nearly every page, points out features that can't help but inform anyone's understanding of this touchstone of Western culture.Youens includes the first page of the score of every song, as well as the German text -- with the occasional changes by Schubert carefully noted and explained -- and the translation into English. Even if you don't speak German, I'd highly recommend reading Mueller's text while you recall the melody of the song. It really gives an appreciation of the art not just of Schubert but of Mueller as well, who Youens argues is unjustly viewed as a minor German poet these days. Her appreciation of Mueller made a believer out of me. Five stars for this educational, well-written book that gave me a completely new view of a cycle I've listened to hundreds of times.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Listmania!
|
|
