Winterreise is at once the peak of the lieder repertory and Schubert's testament. It guides the listener to distant landscapes - into the innermost depths of the human heart. For the singer, it is a mighty challenge - taken up here by Mark Padmore, accompanied on the fortepiano by Kristian Bezuidenhout. This intense, distilled reading of Wilhelm Muller's poetry resolutely turns its back on the traditions that usually hold sway in this area of the Romantic musical heritage.
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REVIEW:
Padmore’s fairly reedy tone and his restraint in matters of volume go well with the instrument, and Kristian Bezuidenhout is a sympathetic accompanist. Padmore’s interpretation, too, I would say, is intense and perhaps unusually inward, very much a journey of the tormented soul rather than one through a bleak and unaccommodating landscape.
