Michael Wilmering & Daan Boertien: Schubert: Winterreise
TRPTK

With this emotionally visceral treatment of Winterreise, baritone Michael Wilmering and pianist Daan Boertien present an expressive new take on Franz Schubert's timeless song-cycle. Completed in 1827, the work comprises twenty-four songs largely set in minor keys, a choice befitting the despairing journey undertaken by its bereft protagonist. The work's tone might be explained, at least in part, by personal circumstances the composer was dealing with at the time: he'd contracted syphilis and would ultimately die from it in 1828 at the age of thirty-one. He'd been remarkably productive during his short life, however, with numerous chamber works, nine symphonies, twenty piano sonatas, and over 600 art songs created before his death. Within the latter category we find three main cycles, Die Schöne Müllerin (The Beautiful Miller's Daughter), Schwanengesang (Swan Song), and, of course, Winterreise.

For both Die Schöne Müllerin (1823) and Winterreise, Schubert used texts by the Prussian poet Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827), with the title of his Die Winterreise (The Winter Journey) shortened for greater impact. The atmosphere of the work is bleak and unrelenting in its recounting of an alienated traveller venturing out into a wintry landscape to confront the angst he's suffering over lost love. In true Romantic fashion, said journey is as much directly inwardly as into the physical world. As the traveller isn't named and descriptive details aren't provided, he assumes something of an Everyman status.

Musically, Schubert's melodies resonate powerfully, so much it's easy to imagine legions of later composers having been influenced by the work. It's possible, for example, to hear a Schubert song such as “Gute Nacht” echoing in a Kurt Weill song like “Youkali” and “I'm a Stranger Here Myself” (how interesting that the English translation of the opening line in Winterreise is “A stranger I arrived here, a stranger I go hence”). In art song fashion, Schubert takes his musical cues from the text and tailors melodic shadings to suit the emotional tone of the words. While “Der stürmische Morgen” (The Stormy Morning) is tempestuous, for instance, vocal and piano melodies dance breezily in “Täuschung” (Pretence) during the lines “A friendly light dances in front of me; I follow it hither and thither.”

A special kind of singer is needed to do justice to the emotional terrain of the work, one capable of immersing himself in the role of the forlorn protagonist and conveying the despair he's experiencing. Michael Wilmering fits the bill terrifically on the sixty-seven-minute recording and is supported in doing so by Boertien's sympathetic accompaniment. A graduate of the Conservatory of Utrecht, Wilmering worked for a year at the Opera Studio in Stuttgart and has sung a variety of roles with De Nederlandse Opera and other companies. He gives himself fully to the part and conveys what the wanderer experiences convincingly; his vocal artistry is evident throughout but perhaps registers most during the work's more restrained parts, in songs such as “Wasserflut” (Torrent) and “Rast” (Rest).

The opening “Gute Nacht” (Good Night) finds the protagonist bidding his beloved goodbye and venturing out, his trudge mirrored in the quietly insistent patterns of the piano. While it's at first controlled, Wilmering's delivery gradually begins to suggest anguish as the wanderer muses upon his plight (“Now the world is dismal, the path veiled in snow”). The despair hinted at in the opening song blossoms in the third, “Gefrorne Tränen” (Frozen Tears), and he thereafter cries, “My heart is as good as frozen” in the fourth, “Erstarrung” (Numbness). A touching melancholy pervades “DerLindenbaum” (The Linden Tree) when the wanderer's journey takes him past said tree, in whose shadow he's “dreamed full many a sweet dream.” Over the course of the journey, he passes rivers, finds shelter in a “charcoal-burner's tiny hut,” and encounters a will ‘o the wisp, a crow, and at work's end “Der Leiermann” (The Hurdy-gurdy Man), the indifference with which the latter's met by the world around him chilling.

In a work dominated by minor keys, “Frühlingstraum” (Dreaming of Spring) stands out for being in a major—appropriately so, considering that it features the protagonist dreaming of bright flowers and green meadows until stirred awake by a cock's crowing. Radiant too is “Die Post” (The Post), during which he feels an upsurge of joy when the posthorn blows, only to realize, of course, that there's no letter for him. An epiphany of sorts is reached in “Der Wegweiser” (The Signpost) when the downtrodden wanderer sings, “One road I must travel by which no-one ever came back,” words that would seem to portend death. Sure enough, he's at a graveyard in the next song, “Das Wirtshaus” (The Tavern), but just as quickly determines he's condemned to continue living and carries defiantly on, mustering courage as he does so. However hopeful an image that evokes, the tone of the work's closing song is despairing in keeping with the haunting image of the barefoot hurdy-gurdy man, grinding his instrument with his numb fingers as dogs growl around him.

March 2022