Winterreise

Baritone Nathaniel Watson and pianist Michael McMahon, both based in Montreal, give us their rendition of Franz Schubert’s monumental song cycle, Winterreise, written in 1827, the year before Schubert’s tragic, early death. The 24 settings of poems of Wilhelm Müller are a journey deep into the psyche of a young man, unlucky in love, who sets out with neither friend nor destination, in the dead of winter, an epic figure in the dawning of German Romanticism. In this recording, also made in winter (and during a pandemic), Watson and McMahon share their experience and lifelong passion for Schubert. The composer, who had already composed some 600 Lieder in his short life, confessed to his close circle of friends that these songs moved him more than all the others.