Winterreise

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Winterreise

work by Schubert

Also known as: “Winter Journey”

Written by Betsy Schwarm

Fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Article History

German:: “Winter Journey”

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Schubert, Franz: WinterreiseWinterreise, a cycle of 24 songs by Franz Schubert.

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Schubert, Franz: “Gefror'ne Tränen (“Frozen Tears”)“Gefror'ne Tränen” (“Frozen Tears”), the third song in the song cycle Winterreise (“Winter Journey”) by Franz Schubert, reveals the composer's ability to express highly dramatic feelings with pointed restraint. In this song the narrator realizes that his extreme inner pain is manifest in his unconscious tears.

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Schubert, Franz: “Der Leiermann”“Der Leiermann” (“The Hurdy-Gurdy Man”), the last song in the song cycle Winterreise (“Winter Journey”) by Franz Schubert, shows the young narrator's identification of his own broken life with that of the old, lonely, and despised hurdy-gurdy man he observes.

Winterreise, cycle of 24 songs for male voice and piano composed in 1827 by Austrian composer Franz Schubert, with words by German poet Wilhelm Müller. Schubert was reviewing the publisher’s proofs of the cycle in the weeks before his death, shortly before his 32nd birthday. He had already performed the songs for a gathering of friends, but they had not yet reached the public.

The poetry is written in the voice of a young man who, upon seeing his beloved marry another, sets out on foot in the deepest winter to escape memories of her. His heart is broken, and his life is a torment of memories, dreams, and present pain. Schubert’s music perfectly captures that torrent of emotion with his exquisite control of the harmonies and melodic flow. The subject matter—a wanderer alone with his sorrows—was a popular theme of the Romantic era.

Betsy Schwarm