Schubert's Winter Journey Anatomy of an Obsession [Paperback]

An exploration of the world’s most famous and challenging song cycle, Schubert's Winter Journey (Winterreise), by a leading interpreter of the work who teases out the themes—literary, historical, psychological—that weave through the twenty-four songs that make up this legendary masterpiece.

Drawing equally on his vast experience performing this work, on his musical knowledge, and on his training as a scholar, Ian Bostridge teases out the enigmas and subtle meanings of each of the twenty-four lyrics to explore for us the world Schubert inhabited, his biography and psychological makeup, the historical and political pressures within which he became one of the world’s greatest composers, and the continuing resonances and affinities that our ears still detect today, making Schubert’s wanderer our mirror.

“Illuminating.”—The New Yorker

“Enthralling.... After reading it, we may listen differently to this supreme work of art.”—The New York Review of Books

“Exquisite.... [An] engaging mélange of memoir, cultural history, close musical reading, glimpses of biography and wide-reaching examples of the ripple effect of Winterreise's influence on writers, composers, historians, and thinkers.’” —The Independent (UK)

“Tantalizing....It’s easy to imagine stunned young acolytes carrying [Schubert’s Winter Journey] around the way they used to carry around Goethe’sSorrows of Young Werther.” —Opera News

Ian Bostridge, one of Britain’s foremost tenors...knows every last nuance of the work and has given it a great deal of thought. His beautifully produced book offers many new insights that will inform the enjoyment of both old admirers and newcomers to the music. —The Economist

Wouldn't it be great if we nonexpert folks l£Ç