Our Notes & References

First edition, complete, of one of the greatest cycles of songs, if not the greatest. “If you are among those who consider the harrowing and desolate Winterreise to be the greatest of all song cycles, you have plenty of company…” (David Dubal, Essential Canon of Classical Music, p. 186-187).

The twenty-four songs of Winterreise are set to poems by the lyric poet Wilhelm Müller (1794-1827), a free-mason much influenced by romantic German poets as well as Lord Byron. Schubert had already written in 1823 a full songs cycle on the poet’s Die schöne Müllerin, when Müller published his Winterreise in 1824. Schubert loved the work and composed his music in 1827, finishing it in Octoer just at the time of Müller’s death and a year before his own – both artists dying in their early 30s.

Scarce complete of both parts, like here.

Schubert considered Winterreise his finest work, but he did not live to see the entire cycle published. Structured and composed in two parts, composed more than six months apart, the cycle of songs was also published in two stages: the first part appeared on January 14, 1828, just four days after the first performance of the first song; while the second part, whose proofs Schubert was still correcting just days before his death on November 19, was published posthumously on December 30, 1828.

The present example, complete with both parts, belongs to the later issue of the first edition, as the first part includes a table of contents for all 24 songs and lists the prices of both parts on the title page. The second edition of the cycle appeared in 1842.