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back to the text,’ says Appl. ‘I find it very interesting that he is the one who is actually
brave. He goes out, he’s searching for light. Here’s someone who looks for light and

for a way out. He also criticises society, which is lying in its bed asleep and doesn’t
take its own fate into its own hands, or even really ask questions and reflect. He’s

the one who goes through this entire struggle, and he’s actually quite a brave man. I
often think that Schubert and Müller’s message is also for us.’ Baillieu adds: ‘At this
very minute, people are fleeing from Afghanistan, Syria and many other countries. Of

course, they’re not being driven by loss of love, but they’re embarking on immense
winter journeys, journeys we can’t even begin to imagine. And so it’s a universal

topic that has relevance even more so today.’

One baritone who returned to the cycle throughout his career – from fresh-voiced
young man singing to fellow prisoners of war in Italy to seasoned artist, nearly 50
years later, with naturally reduced vocal powers – was Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. He

recorded it commercially seven times, with various off-air and pirated versions as
supplements. And Appl was Fischer-Dieskau’s last pupil. ‘It was very strange,’ he

remembers; ‘although we worked on Winterreise and I was expecting it to be an
incredibly fulfilling experience, he gave the impression that he had closed that

particular chapter. It was as if he was not emotionally connected to this music in the
way that he was, for example, to other Schubert songs we worked on, or to Wolf, or

Brahms’s Four Serious Songs, which he was addicted to. I thought in the beginning
that it was to do with me or with my singing – that he didn’t like it. I asked him, “Is this
the most important music for you?” and he said “No,” in quite a brutal way. And I still

don’t know why. I think about it quite often. Maybe it was his mood that day. Yes, we
worked through the entire cycle, worked a lot on language, understanding of the text

and vibrato – which was always very important to him; but he was somehow quite
detached from it.’