This recording was nominated for the 2000 Grammy Award for "Best Classical Vocal Performance." 'Winterreise' is the greatest of song cycles but not a pleasant trip. Barely thirty years old when he set Wilhelm Mueller's poems about a spurned lover's journey into a dark, frozen landscape of despair, Schubert was himself facing the inevitability of a terminal illness and able to follow the poet's psychological narrative to the brink with terrible precision. It is said that the songs' first audiences were shocked, not by the music, but by the intensity of the emotional disturbance on display. Thomas Quasthoff is a German bass-baritone with a warm, mellifluous voice. His 'Winterreise' is thoughtfully planned, more beautiful than most, perhaps not as grim as some. It is transposed down a third from the original tenor pitch, making the piano part--well served by Charles Spencer--a little darker. There is of course a great tradition of low voices in this music, from Hans Hotter to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. Quasthoff is a worthy addition to their ranks.
