Schubert: Winterreise (Live from Wigmore Hall) [Live]

Matthias Goerne (Performer), Franz [Vienna] Schubert (Composer), Alfred Brendel (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Matthias Goerne, Alfred Brendel
• Composer: Franz [Vienna] Schubert
• Audio CD (March 9, 2004)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Live
• Label: Decca
• ASIN: B000174LTS
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #242,726 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Composed at the end of his life, Schubert's cycle Winterreise contains some of the bleakest, most shattering music ever written; he himself described it as "spine-chilling." As always, he turned literary dross into musical gold, transforming the relentless self-absorption of Müller's Wanderer, who reflects everything he sees back upon himself, into a heartbreaking human tragedy. It is the music that mirrors the barren wintry landscape in the soul's hopeless desolation on this journey whose numbly desired destination is death. In a great performance, these 24 songs--most of them slow, two-thirds in minor keys--can be overwhelming and this one, recorded live at London's Wigmore Hall (with applause at the beginning and ovations at the end), must be one of the greatest. Goerne's voice, famous for its incomparably pristine purity and velvety mellowness, is capable of an incredible variety of color, nuance and inflection; every note is infused with sustained expressiveness. But Brendel's piano also sounds extraordinarily beautiful; together they almost literally paint images, moods and feelings--not in the usual sense of "word-painting," (though Goerne has a way with coloring specific words), but rather through their infinite, loving attention to subtle changes in harmony and melodic contours, their phrasing and rhythmic flexibility. Brendel knows just how to bring out important lines and how to control dynamics and articulation; his preludes and postludes are miracles of setting and maintaining atmosphere. They favor slow tempi. There is a sense of limitless time in their poised transitions, long pauses, their affectionate lingering over significant words and notes. Yet the continuity and cohesion of each song as well as of the whole cycle are never broken; the musical and emotional concentration never flags from first note to last. --Edith Eisler

Product Description

GOERNE MATTHIAS / BRENDEL ALFRED SCHUBERT: WINTERRIESE

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy this now!, March 14, 2004

By 

offeck (New York, NY -- United States of America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Schubert: Winterreise (Live from Wigmore Hall) (Audio CD)

The only things I would have changed are the introductory and concluding applause, at least placing them on separate tracks. Other than that, the audience doesn't once get in the way. As for the performance, it easily trumphs each performer's previous recording -- Matthias Goerne with Graham Johnson, and Alfred Brendel with Dietrich Fischer Dieskau. The sound is very good. There are many moments of very touching intimacy. Quietude, introspection, prayer. Pianism is very good, very well phrased, very well balances. The singing is astonishing. I found myself breathless, nearly in tears -- maybe because this is my favorite song cycle, maybe because Matthias Goerne is my favorite vocalist. Regardless, this is a flawless and very powerful interpretation, to which I'm sure to find myself returning more than any other for quite awhile. I own many recordings of this work (3 Dieskau, 3 Hotter, 2 Prey, Hampson, Bar, Souzay, Vickers, Pears, Quasthoff, Greindl, Schmidt, Patzak, 2 Goerne) and this is my favorite.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A superb "Winterreise", November 15, 2008

By 

LJM (Earth) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Schubert: Winterreise (Live from Wigmore Hall) (Audio CD)

This live 2004 performance of Schubert's "Winterreise" has caused different reactions. In parts of old Europe, it has been hailed as something very special. By contrast, in the US, some reviewers have had great difficulties with Goerne's style, claiming that he rather whispers and shouts instead of actually singing.

Considering the latter opinion, it is clear that Goerne has his own style. But what's the problem with that? One reviewer here at amazon says that Schubert's "Winterreise" has its "greatest impact when sung with unaffected emootional [sic!] directness". Dan Davis at Classicstoday says that Goerne's performance is "still marred by overinterpretation that, while apparently deeply felt, comes off as self-regarding." He also thinks that Goerne occasionally adopts a "quasi-sprechstimme style" in his performance.

Apparently these guys hold the view that there are great restrictions in interpreting Schubert's "Winterreise". You're out of bounds if you dare to do something personal with it.

When I listen to this performance I cannot see that this objection is relevant. Goerne and Brendel is an ideal match, as in the cases of Pears/Britten, Fischer-Dieskau/Moore, and Hotter/Moore. All these recordings make sense to me, in their own ways. Together with Hans Hotter's recording, however, I think this is the most personal and disturbing performance that I have heard - "disturbing" in the sense of moving; that the particular mood of these desolated songs actually is transmitted through the interpretation as such. It is of course possible to sing "Winterreise" with a beautiful tone, more or less ignoring the content of Müller's poems. For example, Fischer-Dieskau often strikes me as more focussed on his beautiful tone than on the bitter moods in the traveller's songs. By contrast, I think that Goerne/Brendel and Hotter/Moore perform this work as it represents its own world to us.

This is a contemporary "Winterreise" for our times. That means that it articulates a performance of Schubert's work that is both representative and highly individualistic. Not even Hotter took it as far as Goerne. This is of course chocking to some people. But it could be seen as perfectly consistent with the work's internal structure.

Sound is fine, audience is mainly quiet, Brendel's playing is superb.

Highly recommended!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A romanticized Winterreise that shows off the good and bad in Goerne's approach, March 9, 2008

By 

Santa Fe Listener (Santa Fe, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Schubert: Winterreise (Live from Wigmore Hall) (Audio CD)

Winterreise is the ultimate challenge to a lieder singer, and this is Goerne's second version in less than a decade. From the outset I had my doubts. Goerne's dreamy, creamy voice is seductively beautiful, but a crushed velvet timbre isn't an asset in Schubert, whose songs make their greatest impact when sung with unaffected emootional directness. Artistically, Goerne favors long, often slow legato lyricism, again not an asset in music that should never sound like swooning salon entertainment. One can set against these deficits the singer's serious commitment to the endangered species of lieder, and his thorough musicality.

The results are mixed. Goerne croons too much for my taste -- he seems at times like a Victorian poet caught between love affairs. On the plus side, the singer doesn't agonizingly overinterpret every word, as does Ian Bostridge. Brendel provides suitably soft-grained accompaniments; there's no doubt about the blend between piano and voice. I yearned for more starkness and raw hurt. Those qualities rarely arrived, so in the end what we have is a quality product that is impeccably polished but rarely moving at the level of Peter Pears and Benjamin Britten in their incomparable account from the Sixties.

P.S. May 2009 -- On relistening, I underestimated Goerne's artistry. This Winterreise deserved four stars, not three.