Winterreise

Mässig, in gehender Bewegung — moderate, with a walking motion. The piano plays repeated quaver chords before the voice enters.

“Fremd bin ich eingezogen, / Fremd zieh’ ich wieder aus.” (I came here a stranger; a stranger I leave.) Müller placed the same word at the start of both lines. Schubert’s melody falls over the piano’s steady steps.

Duhan goes straight to the third verse and leaves out the second. That verse contains the line “Die Liebe liebt das Wandern” (love loves to wander).

Joseph von Spaun recalled that Schubert asked his friends to come to Schober’s, where he would sing them “a cycle of horrifying songs”. Schubert then sang the whole of Winterreise in an emotional voice, and his friends were dumbfounded by its sombre mood.

At bar 71 the last verse moves from D minor to D major. So as not to wake her, he closes the door softly and writes goodnight on the gate. The piano keeps up its quaver chords underneath.

Hans Duhan’s Winterreise was the earliest complete recording, made for HMV in 1928, the centenary of Schubert’s death. He recorded nineteen songs with Ferdinand Foll on 27 April, 2 May and 4 May, and the other five with Lene Orthmann in July.

After an un poco ritard. in bar 98, the a tempo at bar 99 restores the walking pace and the music returns to D minor. The voice’s final note is followed by six bars of piano alone, bars 100–⁠105.

The piano plays fast figures for seven bars in E major before the singer enters. Schubert marks them pianississimo. Related piano figures return in the stanza about the cold wind.

“Am Brunnen vor dem Tore”: by the well outside the gate. A linden tree stands there, and the traveller has many memories of it. He dreams in its shade, carves loving words into its bark and returns to it in joy and in sorrow.

The key signature changes to E minor at bar 25, and the third stanza begins at bar 28. The traveller passes the tree at night and closes his eyes, though it is already dark. The piano’s rustling figure, heard earlier in the major, is now in the minor.

After Schubert sang the cycle to his friends, Schober said that of all the songs only “Der Lindenbaum” had pleased him. Schubert answered: “I like these songs more than all the others, and you will come to like them too.”

At bar 45 a low C♮, marked fz, takes the piano away from E major. In the fifth stanza the cold wind blows into his face and blows his hat off. He sings “Ich wendete mich nicht” (I did not turn back) as the piano plays chromatic figures.

The major-key tune returns at bar 58 for the final verse. The wanderer is now hours away, but he still hears the branches tell him “Du fändest Ruhe dort”, that he would find rest there. Schubert repeats this closing line through bar 76.

In the postlude (bars 77–⁠82) the piano brings back the material of its introduction. It closes pp on a final chord of E major.

The piano begins pp in A major and 6/8, marked Etwas bewegt. The singer dreams of bright flowers, green meadows and noisy birds. Schubert sets this imaginary May morning to an easy, dance-like step.

“Da war es kalt und finster”: it was cold and dark. A cock’s crow has woken the wanderer, and ravens shriek on the roof. Schubert marks the passage Schnell (fast) and replaces the swaying piano figure with short chords separated by rests.

At bar 27 the tempo changes to Langsam in 2/4. The piano repeats chords over a sustained A while the singer looks at the leaves painted by frost on his window, the flowers of his dream. He imagines people laughing at a man who sees flowers in winter.

At bar 44, marked Wie oben, the piano brings back the opening 6/8; the voice enters at bar 48. In this stanza the dream contains a young woman, kisses and love returned.

At 4:11, Frühlingstraum is the longest song in Duhan and Foll’s 1928 set, which HMV issued as twelve records with each song on one side. A 12-inch shellac side held a little over four minutes.

At bar 58, marked Schnell, the cockcrow returns with the same fast, clipped accompaniment. At the first awakening his eye opens; now his heart wakes. He sits alone and thinks about the dream.

“Noch schlägt das Herz so warm” — the heart still beats so warmly. The singer closes his eyes and asks when the leaves on the window will turn green and when he will hold his beloved again. Schubert repeats the last question and ends in the minor.

The piano holds a bare fifth in the bass. Above it, a short right-hand figure repeats, imitating the hurdy-gurdy’s wheel and drones. The singer enters after eight bars.

The old man sways barefoot on the ice, and his small plate stays empty. Müller gave him frozen fingers, no audience and no earnings. The piano repeats its tune throughout.

“Keiner mag ihn hören, / Keiner sieht ihn an”: nobody cares to hear him, nobody looks at him. The dogs growl around the player. The same bare fifth continues under the voice.

“Wunderlicher Alter” (strange old man). The traveller addresses the hurdy-gurdy man directly for the first time and asks whether he may go with him and whether the hurdy-gurdy will accompany his songs. The voice rises an octave on the last question, in bars 56–⁠57, and the piano holds its drone.

The voice rests from bar 59. The piano repeats the opening figure and ends on a minor chord over the same drone. Müller’s poem ends with the traveller’s questions.