A hearty soup is simmering on the stove, the chores are done, and a light snow is falling to a steady soft rhythm outside…and my mind is turned to the first edition of our music for a winter’s journey. As I wrote in last week’s newsletter, I’d like to offer a weekly playlist of music, an eclectic mix for our eclectic times.
Playing, as I write…
Franz Schubert – Winterreise* (1827)
Literally, ‘Winter Journey,’ this is a collection of 24 songs written when Schubert was thirty years old and just a year before he died. He composed his song cycle to the poems written by Wilhelm Muller and published just a few years before. This early recording is a classic: Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s voice is sublime, and Gerald Moore’s sensitive piano playing fits him like a soft, understanding glove. The whole cycle lasts for over an hour, so dip in and out as you wish, or simply gaze out the window as the snow falls gently to the ground and let your thoughts wander as they wish…
Titles of the poems are below.
Arvo Pärt – Spiegel im Spiegel Mirrors in the mirror (1978)
Some people love Pärt’s often dark, always introspective music, and others are not so fond. I am definitely of the former. Pärt is from Estonia and still composing. For cello and piano.
Just close your eyes…
Antonio Vivaldi – Winter (1720)
From The Four Seasons, the fourth of Vivaldi’s eternally popular collection of four concertos for solo violin and chamber orchestra. If Pärt is a very minimalist composer, Vivaldi is most definitely not. Enjoy!
Have a fine week, everyone, and till next week.
Sarah
Schubert - Winterreise
1. Good Night
2. The Weathervane
3. Frozen Tears
4. Frozen
5. The Linden Tree
6. Flood
7. On The Stream
8. Backward Glance
9. Will o’ the Wisp
10. Rest
11. Dream of Spring
12. Loneliness
13. The Post
14. The Gray Head
15. The Crow
16. The Last Hope
17. In the Village
18. The Stormy Morning
19. Deception
20. The Signpost
21. The Inn
22. Have Courage
23. The Sun Dogs
24. The Hurdy-Gurdy Man