Schubert: Winterreise

Considered one of the finest lieder singers of his generation, the British tenor Ian Bostridge has earned a reputation as a master of the music of Schubert and Britten, as well as an explorer of the more unusual. His singing is marked by high drama and a particular care in conveying the colour and meaning of the text. Such qualities are very much in evidence in his 2019 recording of Winterreise, Schubert’s groundbreaking—and in many ways unequalled—cycle of 24 songs on texts by German poet Wilhelm Müller.    Few of Bostridge’s contemporaries can equal his authority on Winterreise; in 2014, he published an acclaimed book on the work, and he has performed the songs continually since his debut as a singer in 1993. His winter journey is spare, intense and—in partnership with the great contemporary composer and a pianist of rare insight Thomas Adès—drawn in the colours of ice and snow.