Label : Private | Year : 1827
Winterreise (Winter Journey) is a cycle of 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller 1794-1827, best known as the song cycle set for male voice and piano by Franz Schubert (op. 89, published 1827). It is the second of Schubert's two great song cycles on Müller's poems, the earlier being Die Schöne Müllerin - The Fair Miller-Maid (1823). Both were originally written for tenor voice but are frequently transposed to suit other vocal ranges - the precedent being established by Schubert himself. These two works, in their scale, their dramatic coherence and power, their musical and literary unity, and their interpretative demands, stand in a league of their own within the song-cycle genre. Indeed, although Beethoven's cycle An die ferne Geliebte (To the distant beloved) had been published earlier, in 1816, Schubert's two cycles hold the foremost place in the history of the genre. Like Schubert, Müller died quite young.