A gloomy winter journey with Schubert

With the New Year coming I feel as though it's time to take an intellectual inventory. The inventory reveals that I’m in need of some new ideas. The one’s I have right now are solid but they’re becoming threadbare.

So with this New Year I’m forgoing the whole optimism thing and am going the other direction. This year is going to be terrible. It’s going to be horrendous, a hateful year watered with vinegar and bearing fruits of spite. Let’s stir things up.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit there is a healthy dose of reverse psychology going on here.

Great Harris, thanks for sharing. What the F does this have to do with music?

I’m glad you asked.

There is a piece of music which I’ve been saving for decades. I’ve tried it on a few times in the past but didn’t have the intellectual or emotional frame to support it.

The piece of music is Schubert’s Winterreise. As I began casting about for secondary commentary I came across legendary tenor Peter Pears saying that this was music for an “old man” and that he didn’t consider singing it until after he was 50 years old.

I’m not going to call myself an old man but I understand what Pears was getting at. Pears went on to say he meant experienced or mature.

The perspective of an older man also makes sense in that this is a winter journey and not a spring, summer, or autumn excursion. Yet with all this old man talk, Schubert wrote it when he was 30 and died at 31. Wilhelm Müller wrote the poems when he was 29 and died at 33. 30 is the old 50.

Winterreise begins with a good bye. The first song is titled Gute Nacht (Good Night) and describes a regretful man leaving in the middle of the night. This is the despairing New Year I’m wanting.

The song text begins...

"I arrived a stranger. As a stranger I depart. May was kind to me with bunches of flowers. The girl spoke about love, the mother even spoke of marriage. Now the world is gloomy. The road is shrouded in snow."

"I cannot choose the time to begin the journey. I must find my own way in this darkness."

It is easy and perhaps lazy to assume that a failed love affair has led to the midnight departure. We know there was a girl who spoke of love and a mother who spoke of marriage. We know the world is gloomy and we know that the time to start the journey wasn't a choice.

There is nothing that says why he is leaving. It could be anything--and this is where Winterreise begins to take on the stature of a monument. The omission of specific details leaves it open to all of us.

This man could be leaving for a new job. He could be leaving because he committed a crime. He could be called to military duty. He could be leaving because he has an erection which has lasted more than four hours and needs medical attention. We don’t know.

He must find his own way in this darkness. Could it be that he is unable to give or accept love and must find the way on his own? He is certainly feeling alienated. In the third verse is a brilliant line of text:

"Why should I stay here any longer so that people can drive me away? Let stray dogs howl in front of their master’s house. Love loves to wander — God made it that way — from one to the other. My dearest, good night!"

I love that image of stray dogs. It lends the character a certain dignity and stature. “Love loves to wander” goes in several directions. Whose love is wandering, his love for her or her love for him? Has love wandered to another or is this actually a love of wandering as in the tradition of the wanderer in Romantic literature.

Schubert’s music has a moderate tempo. He isn’t stepping out briskly but he isn’t lingering either. The decision to begin the journey is made in the music. This is a “good night” but it isn’t a lullaby.

We're just getting started with Winterreise in this column. We’re going to visit it from time to time until spring. Next time we will discuss recordings as well as tenor or baritone performances.

Complete Winterreise text with translation.