[PDF] Shakespearersquo;s Medieval Craft: Remnants of the Mysteries on the London Stage by Kurt A. Schreyer at Arts-Photography

Description

An exploration of the worldrsquo;s most famous and challenging song cycle; Schuberts Winter Journey (Winterreise); by a leading interpreter of the work; who teases out the themesmdash;literary; historical; psychologicalmdash;that weave through the twenty-four songs that make up this legendary masterpiece.Completed in the last months of the young Schubertrsquo;s life; Winterreise has come to be considered the single greatest piece of music in the history of Lieder. Deceptively laconicmdash;these twenty-four short poems set to music for voice and piano are performed uninterrupted in little more than an hourmdash;it nonetheless has an emotional depth and power that no music of its kind has ever equaled. A young man; rejected by his beloved; leaves the house where he has been living and walks out into snow and darkness. As he wanders away from the village and into the empty countryside; he experiences a cascade of emotionsmdash;loss; grief; anger; and acute loneliness; shot through with only fleeting moments of hopemdash;until the landscape he inhabits becomes one of alienation and despair. Originally intended to be sung to an intimate gathering; performances of Winterreise now pack the greatest concert halls around the world. Drawing equally on his vast experience performing this work (he has sung it more than one hundred times); on his musical knowledge; and on his training as a scholar; Bostridge teases out the enigmas and subtle meanings of each of the twenty-four lyrics to explore for us the world Schubert inhabited; his biography and psychological makeup; the historical and political pressures within which he became one of the worldrsquo;s greatest composers; and the continuing resonances and affinities that our ears still detect today; making Schubertrsquo;s wanderer our mirror.