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Winterreise after Fischer Dieskau

mandryka

mandryka

pfm Member
I've been on a post Fi-Di Winterreise binge and it has been a real winter journey of discovery. Every singer who is sympathetic to German song wants to have a go at this, and so there is a plethora of interesting stuff on record.

At the moment I am completely addicted to Francisco Araiza's highly original interpretation - possibly the longest on record.


Benjamin Appl another imaginative high point for me

 
les24preludes said:
I'm partial to Josef Greindl, the famous operatic bass. Also Hakon Hagegard.
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I've just got hold of Hagegard's recording in fact and will listen today or tomorrow. His Schwanengesang witn Emanuel Ax is wonderful! Possibly my favourite Schwanengesang.
 
AndyU said:
I can highly recommend Ian Bostridge’s book, “Schubert’s Winter Journey - Anatomy of an Obsession”. And his versions of Winterreise are compelling.

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Yes I have the book. And I appreciate the expressiveness of Bostridge with Adès - he really knows the text and it shows. I love the CD cover, in a sort of perverse, contrarian way.

Listened to Haefliger/Dahler today.

 
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alanbeeb said:
Brigitte Fassbaender and Aribert Reimann well worth hearing as an alternative to male voice.
Schubert: Winterreise https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007FQW5ZU?tag=pinkfishmedia-21

Just noticed Reimann passed away just a couple of weeks ago.
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I find her Schubert really challenging, not necessarily in a bad way. Most of all her Müllerin (that's one hell of a vindictive rejected lover!) I really should give it all more time.

I like Britta Schwarz with Christine Schornsheim - Mitsuko Shirae with Hartmut Höll too.
 
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It's always good to have new recommendations, but I'm afraid that nothing I've heard in recent years can top Fischer-Dieskau.

I think I'll stick rather than twist. How sad is that? 🤔
 
Ades/Bostridge Krähe - is it very very good or is it very very wrong? Over to you


My strongest memory of this song was seeing Simon Keenlyside sing it with a ballet by his wife. Somehow the dance really worked here. I am very susceptible to music and poetry, but most susceptible to movement and dance.
 
There's also Winterreise before F-D..... Notably Peter Anders in 1948. A very fine voice.

Quite a few contenders in Winterreise. I'd nominate these:
Greindl/Klust
Patzak/Demus
Boesch/Martineau
Bar/Parsons
Gura/Berner
Holzmaier/Cooper
Hagegard/Schuback
Aksel Schiotz/Burge
Gerhaher/Huber

Aksel Schiotz is wonderful, though his Carnegie Hall recording in 1964 saw him at age 58. He was around 20 years older than F-D. Patzak was even older. Greindl was older than F-D as well.
 
Here's a wild Bostridge performance with Drake. One of my faves


@les24preludes - Have you heard Boesch on Hyperion? It's not streaming unfortunately and I'm wondering whether to treat myself to it. I like the earlier recording. And thanks for mentioning Schiotz, which I was unaware of.
 
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les24preludes said:
Aksel Schiotz is wonderful, though his Carnegie Hall recording in 1964 saw him at age 58. He was around 20 years older than F-D. Patzak was even older. Greindl was older than F-D as well.
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The Schiøtz is really touching - a great pleasure to hear. It must have been unforgettable to have been in the audience. It reminds me of the "Lost Tapes" recording which DG released a few months ago of Beethoven sonata recordings by Rudolf Serkin made when he was old and ill - in both cases neither the fire nor technique of former years, and in the case of the Schubert not the nuanced reading of the poems of modern singers, but somehow full of gentleness and humanity (whatever that means!)

Has the Schiøtz ever been commercially released?
 
I don't really know Winterreise all that well, but I've just enjoyed listening to Goerne / Eschenbach. It's well recorded, and, to me anyway, the playing and singing are sympathetic and well controlled. The concluding Leiermann was magic. How it compares to other versions, I can't say. Schubert is outside my usual listening territory. :)
 
eisenach said:
I don't really know Winterreise all that well, but I've just enjoyed listening to Goerne / Eschenbach. It's well recorded, and, to me anyway, the playing and singing are sympathetic and well controlled. The concluding Leiermann was magic. How it compares to other versions, I can't say. Schubert is outside my usual listening territory. :)
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If you decide to continue exploring it one thing I would say is this: it's well worth getting to know the poetry. They're crazy, the Müller poems. And the melodies and piano really do bring magic things to the sense of the words. Can't explain it better than that I'm afraid!
 
I read and understand German, though the poetry is quite challenging. I listened with the text(s) in the CD booklet (remember those ?), and found the whole experience very rewarding.
I later found that I also have a Diapason essentielles CD of a Fischer Dieskau recording live in Prades in the 50s, so gave that a spin, too. Prefer the Goerne, not just for the better, more modern recording.
 
At the moment my test song is Erstarrung - particularly the extraordinary verse

Ich will den Boden küssen,
durchdringen Eis und Schnee
mit meinen heißen Tränen,
bis ich die Erde seh’.

Unbelievable sentiment!
 
alanbeeb said:
Its a bit of a thing that maudlin kitsch tends to make better songs than good poetry
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That particular poem, Erstarrung, feels almost surreal to me -- it kind of touches on madness. You can see the madness in his eyes -- imagine Yosser Hughes doing it.


TheDecameron said:
Has he not been blowing his own trumpet a bit much?
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What are you saying? Hagegard, by the way, recorded an amazing Schwanengesang with Emanuel Ax.
 
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