In my piece “Winterreise” [Winter Journey], I approach the music of another composer, perhaps as one shouldn’t do without going unpunished. The question of the protagonist, of the wanderer at the end of his journey “...will you play your hurdy-gurdy to my songs?” is an expression of the composition, in the future course of which only harmonic and melodic material emerges, which prepares his way and his time – rhythmically, dynamically and motorically vibrating – without reaching a goal, indeed without even striving towards one. No question is asked and none answered. Nothing can be added to the phenomenon of Schubert and his work. With my orchestration of the song “Der Winterabend”, composed in January 1828 a few months after the completion of “Die Winterreise”, and which concludes the cycle, I am giving back to Schubert that which I have borrowed from him during my life. I confess that the texts are also important to me. Where the absolute isolation of the “Fremdling” [stranger] becomes evident in the question to the hurdy-gurdy player “...do you want to go with me?”, and in “Winterabend” in greeting the moonlight, which is believed capable of knowing the true inner being, something is concluded which is deeply moving. Whilst I was working on the piece, I couldn’t myself definitely answer the more important question of whether this “Winterreise” represents a journey back, a reminiscence, a kind of aftershock or whether it also mirrors symptoms of our time. Ultimately it is not about matters which will deliberately be decided one way or the other.

Heinz Winbeck