Page 132 - Winterreise Coverage Book, 2021 - 22

A nearby stone tower could be the charcoal-burner’s hut in Rast. But the snow had begun to fall, so
thickly that Appl and our pianist James Baillieu broke down on their way from the airport, and had
to wait for two hours in a lay-by before being rescued. Eight centimetres of snow would be ideal, I
thought, but instead we had 80, and, while snow ploughs intermittently kept the road up to the
pass open, most of our off-road locations became impractical.

We pressed ahead with filming inside the Tower, but once we had enough material for playback,
we seized the moment of a snowstorm to venture outside and ask Appl to sing. Now, most singers
would refuse point blank to be filmed in such conditions, let alone sing. Appl probably wished he
had done the same. The temperature was minus 14 degrees, and the contours of the landscape
were disappearing fast.

Appl inside the tower, which was built in 2017 at an altitude of 2,300m CREDIT: BBC Four

The Julier Tower in the background vanished completely after 10 minutes. It was a scene from
Scott of the Antarctic, with the film crew huddled under a fishing umbrella, and our sound
recordist, Paddy Boland, buried inside a tarpaulin. For a moment, Appl ruled out any singing, but
then decided to give it a go, and gamely tackled not just the agreed first two lines of Mut! but the
whole song – his voice surprisingly strong, and his synchronisation with the piano playback
faultless.

In the white-out, the only sign of snowfall was the white streaks crossing his black overcoat
horizontally, and the snow matting his hair – just right for Der greise Kopf, when the Wanderer
relishes his frosted hair turning him into an old man.

Then we retreated again to the Tardis, but there was no time-travelling for us: we had 24 songs to
record in just four days, with different camera set-ups for each, as well as further expeditions in
the snow. The stop-start process of filming was arduous for the artists, as was their physical
separation within the Tower.