My Top 10 Recordings - no. 3: Fischer-Dieskau/Winterreise

If someone were to asked me, what recordings I would take to a lonely island, I would  put on top of my list Franz Schubert’s song cycle “Winterreise” (Winter Journey). 

Some of the songs in this cycle are folk melodies, others offer deeply philosophical words of wisdom, and the accompanying piano becomes a companion on this winter journey highlighting and deepening the words of the poetry. 

Winterreise was my teenage fix, a world to disappear in, better yet a whole parallel universe to live in for unengaging school periods. This work has accompanied me through many stretches in my life, and I had the incredible fortune to play it, which is an all-encompassing experience.

The reason why I love this recording - other than Fischer-Dieskau’s voice, interpretation and everlasting connection to this cycle - is a concert experience:

During my undergraduate years in Freiburg, Germany I lived directly opposite to a concert hall, which featured a classical music series (Albert Konzerte). There I heard and sometimes met artists like Brendel, Argerich, Richter, Lupu, and also Fischer-Dieskau. 

As a conservatory student I got free seats for the series, but only in the last row.

The concert with Fischer-Dieskau and Winterreise featured a program booklet which included the complete poetry for the song cycle. The booklet was naturally quite substantial, since there are 24 songs in Winterreise, and there were signs posted ‘please not to turn booklet pages during the course of a song so not to disturb our patrons’ listening experience’. 

What was amazing in that concert is that nobody actually read along in the booklet, nobody turned pages. Fischer-Dieskau’s voice reached all the way to the back of the hall - even to my last row student seat. Each word was crystal clear, it was easy to hear the words, and there really was no need to read along! 

I remember a long silence in the audience after Fischer-Diskau had finished the last song with the words “Wunderlicher Alter, soll ich mit dir gehen? Willst zu meinen Liedern deine Leier drehn?”

60 minutes of live-music magic were followed by long-lasting standing ovations.

Up to this day Fischer-Dieskau’s interpretation of Winterreise is my gold standard for this work, and a guiding light for my own interpretations of music at the piano.