Page 193 - Winterreise Coverage Book, 2021 - 22

Unlike Hamlet, who bounces back from every thought of a self-sought end,
out of "fear of something after death, / The undiscovered country, from the

district / No Wandrer returns", Schubert's winter lonely stomps into the

last consequence of his hopelessness: "I have to go one road, / Nobody went

back yet." To speak with Goethe's "Werther" is "not to help". This touches
deepness beyond love and suffering. No wonder Schubert's friends were

"stunned" when they heard this.

These songs hit us today with their menacing directness. The relevant
conversation of contemporary history revolves around phenomena of

alienation and crumbling balance, mental illness nests in the underlining of

crises, in war, pandemic and information confusion. In the age of twisted
truths, who would want to escape the conviction that "only deception is

gain for me"? And who wouldn't hear the sarcastic lament in the song of

"Irrlicht": "Our joys, our sorrows, / All of an aberration game?" The

hopelessness also receives its agnostic-ironic comment: "Funny into the
world / Against wind and weather! / Does not want to be a god on earth, /

Are we gods ourselves." Funny?

The "Winter Journey" is interspersed with ghostly contrasts of mood and
reflection. It is the milieu of 2022, no doubt. Not only does the composer

change major and minor in swirling alternations, he also has to deal with

the contradictions of the content, which the poet has enigmatically
interwoven. Once the tears spring "from the chest so scorching hot, / As if

you wanted to melt / Ice all winter." Then, in the following song ("Torpor"),

he fears the loss of the image of the deceased lover frozen in his heart:

"Does my heart melt again, / Does her image also flow away." Accordingly,
Schubert plunges the singer into a confusion of pianissimo and fortissimo,

an emotional imposition, which Appl masters with brilliant vocal gradation.