How much suffering can the human soul endure? When does increasing unhappiness turn into utter despair and the desire to employ the ultimate weapon of self-destruction? The Romantic era in the early 19th century throws up case after case of poets, composers and other artists who stood on the abyss and saw only blackness beyond. The texts of Wilhelm Müller, on which Schubert drew for inspiration in his song cycle Winterreise, have to do with alienation, rejection and loneliness. Both men died within a year of each other, not much more than thirty years of age. The tragedy of an early death is made all the more poignant in Schubert’s case by the fact that he was arguably the most humble of composers, dying in penury and without the contemporary world registering his passing. If the physical world filled him with more than his share of pain and anguish, heaven clearly smiled on his artistic endeavours, not least in his mystical alliance with Müller, who stated: “My poems lead only a half-life, a paper life, black on white, until music infuses them with the breath of life.”
This song cycle has tested great singers through the ages. It has not been without controversy. Much attention has been focused on the timbral qualities of the ideal voice and whether or not in performance it should be the preserve of the male gender. Incontestably, rejection and loneliness are experienced by both men and women. In a programme note, Frankie Perry averred: “There is a long history of women performing and recording Winterreise, and a shorter and often unpleasant history of critics squabbling about it.” I have no intention of joining that rowdy debate. Joyce DiDonato sang her first Winterreise in 2018, and a year later joined luminaries such as Christa Ludwig, Brigitte Fassbaender and Nathalie Stutzmann in committing an interpretation to disc. In this appearance at Wigmore Hall DiDonato sought to go one step further. The original song cycle places all the attention on the male protagonist. But what of the woman left behind? What of her journey since finding “Gute Nacht” etched on her gate in the morning light? Viewing this collection of twenty-four Lieder through an alternative lens offers us an opportunity to broaden our understanding of the material.
This extends to the role of the accompanist. DiDonato was partnered here by Maxim Emelyanychev. His choice of instrument was a fortepiano rather than a modern concert grand. Some noses might wrinkle at the thought of the resulting shift in sonority. Lacking a cast-iron frame a fortepiano is four to five times lighter; it features a narrower keyboard and has knee levers instead of pedals; the sound decays much faster too, yet it’s very lightness yields a greater delicacy and intimacy.
It was this feeling of intimacy that I missed during some stages of this cycle. This was most evident in the fourth song, Erstarrung (Numbness), where colour and life rapidly drain away in the poet’s train of thought, but where this was not matched in DiDonato’s declamatory tone. There was no doubting the lustrous instrument she commands: a powerful, reliably secure voice with only a very occasional hint of strain in the highest register, and a creamy opulence that delighted the ear, especially in Wasserflut. But it was her operatic background that often made itself felt: high drama in these songs needs to be tempered by melancholic introspection, the voice should be more flexible in the dynamic shadings, the pain half hidden rather than always out in the open.
My most recent encounter with Winterreise was in a dramatised performance by Allan Clayton, during which the protagonist traversed a large stage mirroring his internal journey. And DiDonato’s own approach was entirely credible and persuasive by placing the events in an historical context. At the start of the cycle she seated herself behind an antique writing-desk which matched the marquetry of Emelyanychev’s fortepiano, and delved into the thought processes “of the one left behind”. The book she held in her hands and to which she repeatedly referred was explained in her own programme note: “He sent me his journal in the post…” This idea lent itself to her own dramatisation: the perusing of pages, the turning of the head, the quizzical looks, both hands clasped to the breast or the clutching of the neck, fingers to the lips, an outstretched right arm, seated and standing as well as moving both towards and away from the fortepiano.
The clarity of diction together with DiDonato’s excellent German were a particular highlight, the correct rolling of the “r” in the opening song’s “Reisen” being one obvious example of attention to detail, though more could have been made of the semantic importance of the frequent “Achs” in Müller’s poetry. Variously translated as “alas” or “ah!”, these were sometimes glossed over. Yet there was plenty of excitation elsewhere: touches of hysteria in Die Wetterfahne, where the burning anguish was fully conveyed in the searing quality of “das heisse Weh”, the wonderful volume of sound for the iterations of “Mein Herz” in Die Post, and the final thrilling challenge to the organ-grinder in “Willst zu meinen Liedern deine Leier drehn?” that concludes Der Leiermann.
Most of these songs are in the minor key. There therefore needs to be an occasional surge of spirit if the listener is not to fall into a state of catatonic depression. Even when the prevailing mood was dark and chthonic, DiDonato offered moments of consolation, as in the second stanza of Der Wegweiser, and the voice was neatly pared down to almost a whisper at the close of Im Dorfe.
Any concerns that the accompaniment might prove secondary were dispelled by Emelyanychev’s resolute playing. His concentration never once faltered over the span of seventy minutes. At times though he almost overwhelmed DiDonato in sheer forcefulness, where the later screaming of the ravens was already foreshadowed in the “von lustigem Vogelgeschrei” of Frühlingstraum. His very sharp rhythms gave added point to the click-clacking of the postal carriage in Die Post, and he served up a delicately rippling line at the start of Die Krähe.
After the applause had died down following this lonesome tread through a bleak winter landscape, DiDonato was concerned not to send her audience out into a world that is further troubled by much strife and confusion at the present time. She offered one of Richard Strauss’s songs, written in the major key of G in 1894, as an encore and touch of welcome optimism, as slow and elegantly sustained as you are ever likely to hear. “Und Morgen wird die Sonne wieder scheinen” is the opening line of Morgen!. The sun will indeed shine again tomorrow.
Alexander Hall
Franz Schubert: Winterreise D911
Joyce DiDonato (soprano); Maxim Emelyanychev (fortepiano)
Wigmore Hall, London, 28 March 2025
Top image: Joyce DiDonato (soprano); Maxim Emelyanychev (fortepiano)
Photos © Wigmore Hall Trust