 |
CDWinter Journey : in original German and a new English Translation / Nathan Lay, Brian Chapman, Lucy Chapman
|
Product details
For this recording of Winterreise, Op. 89 (D.911), pianist Brian Chapman has prepared a new English translation, and as accompanist, with baritone Nathan Lay, recorded the entire song cycle in both English and German on two CDs. The set is presented with a lavish 56 book presentation featuring 24 paintings created by artist Lucy Chapman especially for this release.
Franz Schubert's Winter Journey is widely regarded as the greatest of all song cycles for solo voice with piano, being claimed by some to be Schubert's greatest work. The cycle takes around 70 minutes to perform and comprises settings of twenty-four poems by Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827) that deal with unrequited love, alienation, atheism and the contemplation of suicide.
Although Winterreise is numbered among Schubert's final master-pieces, it remains a youthful work in every sense: Müller wrote the poems in his late twenties, Schubert set about composing the music having just turned 30, and the poems' protagonist is a recently jilted youth. This gives the lie to any suggestion that Winterreise can only be performed by vocalists who have lived long enough to have suffered several decades' worth of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune - a suggestion which gives very little credit to the power of human intelligence and imagination!
Originally written for tenor voice, Winterreise has, since the twentieth century, become at least the equal province of the baritone, for whom, as in the present recording, all the songs are rendered in keys generally lower than those of the original tenor version. For this recording, pianist Brian Chapman has prepared a new English singable translation with the aim of fostering a wider audience for Schubert's masterpiece beyond those who already love the original German version, while his wife, painter Lucy Chapman, has prepared 24 images inspired by the respective poems, following the example of a number of visual artists such as the German soprano-painter Lotte Lehmann (ca. 1940) and the Icelandic photographer Helga Kvam (ca. 2005).
User reviews
Be the first to share your thoughts, opinions and insights about this item.
To post a comment please login