Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig", the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in ...(+)
Franz Peter Schubert (1797 – 1828) was an Austrian
composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras.
Despite his short life, Schubert left behind a vast
oeuvre, including more than 600 secular vocal works
(mainly lieder), seven complete symphonies, sacred
music, operas, incidental music, and a large body of
piano and chamber music. His major works include the
art song "Erlkönig", the Piano Trout Quintet in A
major, the unfinished Symphony No. 8 in B minor, the
"Great" Symphony No. 9 in C major, a String Quintet,
the three last piano sonatas, the opera Fierrabras, the
incidental music to the play Rosamunde, and the song
cycles Die schöne Müllerin and Winterreise. He was
remarkably prolific, writing over 1,500 works in his
short career. His compositional style progressed
rapidly throughout his short life. The largest number
of his compositions are songs for solo voice and piano
(roughly 630). Schubert also composed a considerable
number of secular works for two or more voices, namely
part songs, choruses and cantatas. He completed eight
orchestral overtures and seven complete symphonies, in
addition to fragments of six others. While he composed
no concertos, he did write three concertante works for
violin and orchestra. Schubert wrote a large body of
music for solo piano, including eleven incontrovertibly
completed sonatas and at least eleven more in varying
states of completion, numerous miscellaneous works and
many short dances, in addition to producing a large set
of works for piano four hands. He also wrote over fifty
chamber works, including some fragmentary works.
Schubert's sacred output includes seven masses, one
oratorio and one requiem, among other mass movements
and numerous smaller compositions. He completed only
eleven of his twenty stage works.
"Winterreise" (Winter Journey D.911 Op. 89) is a song
cycle for voice and piano by Schubert in 1828 in a
setting of 24 poems by German poet Wilhelm Müller. It
is the second of Schubert's two song cycles on
Müller's poems, the earlier being Die schöne
Müllerin (D. 795, Op. 25, 1823). Both were originally
written for tenor voice but are frequently transposed
to other vocal ranges, a precedent set by Schubert
himself. The two works pose interpretative demands on
listeners and performers due to their scale and
structural coherence. Although Ludwig van Beethoven's
cycle An die ferne Geliebte (To the Distant Beloved)
was published earlier, in 1816, Schubert's cycles hold
the foremost place in the genre's history.
Schubert found the first twelve poems under the title
Wanderlieder von Wilhelm Müller. Die Winterreise. In
12 Liedern in an almanack (Urania. Taschenbuch auf das
Jahr 1823) published in Leipzig in 1823. His intimate
friend Franz von Schober had provided this book for
him. It was after he set these, in February 1827, that
he discovered the full series of poems in Müller's
book of 1824, Poems from the posthumous papers of a
travelling horn-player, dedicated to the composer Carl
Maria von Weber (godfather of Müller's son F. Max
Müller), "as a pledge of his friendship and
admiration". Weber died in 1826. On 4 March 1827,
Schubert invited a group of friends to his lodgings
intending to sing the first group of songs, but he was
out when they arrived, and the event was postponed
until later in the year, when the full performance was
given. Between the 1823 and 1824 editions, Müller
varied the texts slightly and also (with the addition
of the further 12 poems) altered the order in which
they were presented. Owing to the two stages of
composition, Schubert's order in the song-cycle
preserves the integrity of the cycle of the first
twelve poems published and appends the twelve new poems
as a Fortsetzung (Continuation), following Müller's
order (if one excludes the poems already set) with the
one exception of switching "Die Nebensonnen" and
"Mut!".
Source: Wikipedia
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winterreise)
Although originally composed for Voice & Piano, I
created this Interpretation of "Letzte Hoffnung" (Last
Hope) from "Winterreise" (Winter Journey D.911 Op. 89
No. 16) for Flute & Strings (2 Violins, Viola & Cello).
