Franz Schubert’s last job on his death bed in Vienna in 1828 was to correct the proofs of his song cycle, Die Winterreise, or Winter Journey.
So the despairing lovesick madman in these gorgeous but relentlessly bleak last songs has never been detached from the picture of Schubert himself, his heart on fire, his body dying of syphillis at the age of 31, a musical genius on the scale of Beethoven being snuffed out even younger than Mozart.
The twenty four songs in Die Winterreise stare unblinking into the dark side: with serenity at moments, in a spirit of tragic loneliness at others. “I must find my own way in this darkness,” the traveler sings at the outset, as his tears freeze on his cheeks.
By the end he is staggering into the cold with a numb-fingered organ grinder, his accompanist in the songs of despair.
(Hosted by Christopher Lydon)
Guests:
Pianist Craig Smith and baritone William Hite