Winterreise - your favourite recording

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

That's it then two sources I always believe Ferney and Wiki.....

[Nick Armstrong]

That's it then two sources I always believe Ferney and Wiki.....

[Don Petter]

I've found Ferneyleaks.

[Bryn]

Olaf Bär and Geoffrey Parsons for me. Love Fassbaender's voice, but not for Winterreise or Schumann's Dichterliebe.

Now here's funny thing. The EMI 50 disc box of "Schubert Masterpieces" has Olaf Bär and Geoffrey Parsons for Die schone Mullerin and Schanengesang but opted for the very difficult to find French EMI recording of Jon Vickers and Geoffrey Parsons in Winterreise.



When I got it in an HMV sale it was £18. Currently Amazon.co.uk has it listed at more than ten times that. I would rather have had Bär then Vickers, frankly.

[Nick Armstrong]

I've found Ferneyleaks.

Thank you, doctor.

Nurse - the screens!

[gurnemanz]

Don't start me off .... cop-out coming up:

I like all these:

Thomas Quasthoff -- Daniel Barenboim (movingly done on DVD)
Siegfried Lorenz -- Norman Shetler (under-appreciated baritone - saw him do it live about 40 years ago)
Roman Trekel -- Ulrich Eisenlohr (very good Naxos version - much to enjoy)
Peter Schreier -- András Schiff (doyen of Lied tenors)
Peter Pears -- Benjamin Britten (Pears on form with iffy German and special for Britten piano)
Peter Anders -- Michael Raucheisen (an absolute favourite recorded 1945 in Berlin with Russian tanks streets away)
Olaf Bär -- Geoffrey Parsons (You need Bär)
Nathalie Stutzmann -- Inger Södergren (essential - love her contralto)
Natascha Mirkovic -- Matthias Loibner accompanying on the hurdy-gurdy - (marvellously carried off)
Matthias Goerne -- Alfred Brendel (two greats at work)
Matthias Goerne -- Graham Johnson (Hyperion Complete, marginally prefer above)
Karl Schmitt-Walter -- Ferdinand Leitner - 1942 (I love his light baritone - admired by Fischer-Dieskau)
Hermann Prey -- Karl Engel (a great story-teller)
Henk Neven -- Hans Eijsackers (a recent hit on the BBC mag)
Hans Hotter -- Michael Raucheisen (Hotter, say no more)
Hans Hotter -- Gerald Moore (ditto + Moore)
Gerhard Hüsch -- Hans Udo Müller (bit staid but a classic)
Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau -- Gerald Moore (benchmark and my starting point so many years ago)
Christoph Prégardien -- wind quintet Pentaèdre (another very appealing variant)
Christine Schäfer -- Eric Schneider (currenly hooked on this one)
Christian Gerhaher -- Gerold Huber (best baritone around?)
Brigitte Fassbaender -- Aribert Reimann (another fine female version)

Not got Kaufmann yet. He was superb on the ROH stage with Helmut Deutsch in April.

I've just received the Bostridge book - obviously a real labour of love - and prompted me to order his good-value 5CD collection which contains his recording with Leif Ove Andsnes.

[richardfinegold]

I have 3 DFD versions - on LP with Gerald Moore (early 70s[?] on DG) , Jörg Demus (1966), and on DVD with Alfred Brendel, Berlin 1979, which I watched again just the other day. I got to know the work through DFD, and tho' I've heard numerous other versions (inc. Hotter and Fassbender) I don't feel the need to own any more - much as I admire the voices of Kaufmann, Quasthoff, Goerne etc. DFD just reaches depths of insight and beauty I don't hear elsewhere. I prefer baritone for Winterreise (and tenor for DieSM, somehow it seems to go better with the personality of the narrator, don't ask me why - I did once hear Peter Schreier sing it, perhaps that did it for me). I may well buy IB's new book on Winterreise which sounds fascinating, I'm happy to read him or hear him talk but not singing.

I'd be interested to hear the Christine Schäfer version though, after that write-up.

I haven't heard Kaufman or Finley which have both gotten outstanding reviews, but DFD owns these pieces, imho. I always feel like committing suicide after listening to any of the aforementioned recordings, and that imo is exactly what a good performance of this work should do.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I've found Ferneyleaks.

[verismissimo]

I've found Ferneyleaks.

It can be treated, I understand.

[Barbirollians]

I have relistened to Bostridge's account this morning and it is very good . I don't have the reservations many do about his high tenor voice in Schubert but have always felt he rather peaked too soon in his Die Schone Mullerin on Hyperion - a fabulous record in which he sings very beautifully and he never has quite reached the same level since .

[Roehre]

For me

Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau -- Gerald Moore
Brigitte Fassbaender -- Aribert Reimann

plus Jens josef's version with string quartet i.s.o. piano (CPO) and Hans Zender's 1993 "Eine komponierte Interpretation" (i.a. RCA)

Btw I prefer a male voice in the Winterreise (as I do in Mahler's Fahrenden Gesellen)

[DublinJimbo]

The language is so important in Winterreise that I feel a native German speaker is best.

Fischer-Dieskau is indispensable, especially when teamed up with Gerald Moore.
Brigitte Fassbaender brings unique insights.
With lights out and eyes shut (mine, not theirs), Christophe Prégardien and Andreas Staier come closest to transporting me back to Schubert's time.

For a different take, I'm really taken by Daniel Behle's recent recording of both the piano original and a fascinating arrangement (by Behle himself) with piano trio.

[jayne lee wilson]

There's a lengthy feature on Winterreise in January Gramophone by Richard Wigmore. No time to read it through yet, but it appears very well-written, with a close commentary on the work interspersed with performers' comments. I can see Pregardien/Staier and DFD/Demus on my shelves, but I haven't listened to voice & piano for years now so can't name my own favourites...

There's also Hans Zender's "Eine Komponierte Interpretation" of Schubert's Winterreise, for Ensemble/Voice, with Cambreling/Klangforum Wien/Pregardien (Kairos). I recall this as a compelling listen (great fun too...and beautifully sung).
If you know Uri Caine's take on Beethoven's Diabelli Variations or Mahler Songs, it's an "elaboration" or arrangement along those lines, but from an orchestrally avant-garde perspective, with something of a 2nd-Viennese Theatre-orchestra feel - Guitar, Accordion, muted trumpet & horn against brushed cymbals, rattling of pizzicato bones etc.....
Probably a bit far out for most Schubertians! (Go on, have a go...)

At the Gramophone feature's end, the "Four Recordings to Cherish" are:
Pregardien/Staier, Coote/Drake, Padmore/Lewis, and Finley/Drake...

[Pianorak]

The language is so important in Winterreise . . .

. . . which is precisely why a soprano/alto just doesn't sound right IMHO.

[gurnemanz]

. . . which is precisely why a soprano/alto just doesn't sound right IMHO.

I used to think like that and can remember being astonished when Christine Schäfer was BaL recomendation in 2009. I have gradually changed my view after listening to various female renditions. We had the very moving experience of sitting only a few feet away as Alice Coote delivered a compelling performance at the Wigmore several years ago.

Christa Ludwig used to sing Winterreise and has written (In My Own Voice: Memoirs):

"that the mood of Winterreise is similar to the state of being that Goethe describes in one of his Mignon songs: a place beyond earthly existence...
the songs describe, the road we all have to travel.... Singers of Die Winterreise, whether men or women, have to put themselves and their listeners into a state which goes far beyond music and poetry, also beyond human emotions. It’s a journey of the soul, which brings us, consciously or unconsciously, a bit closer to our goal, whatever we choose to call it, and from which there is no turning back."

I suppose we all have to face confronting with the Leiermann eventually.