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Franz SCHUBERT
Winterreise
Peter Pears (tenor) Benjamin Britten (piano)
Decca 466 382-2 [70.07]
Crotchet
 Amazon UK  Amazon USA

It is good to have this classic 1963 account of Winterreise back in the catalogue. Graham Johnson, who has given many performances of it with some of the greatest Lieder singers, epitomises it as 'fresh, daring and unique'.

Although Peter Pears' German is not flawless, and his voice itself is not everybody's favourite, the intelligence and thought which have gone into his interpretation is evident throughout. Having been a little underwhelmed very recently by Benjamin Britten's conducting of Purcell and Bach [Decca 466 819-2], there is happily no disappointment with his piano playing, with its continual insights expressed in a unique command of touch and colour.

The recording was made in Kingsway Hall by the renowned Decca team of John Culshaw and Kenneth Wilkinson and the 'super-digital' remastering is impeccable. (The back of the insert booklet gives a misleading indication that their equally famed Dichterliebe is included also.)

The Müller poems are given complete, with English translations by William Mann. An indispensable acquisition.

Reviewer

Peter Grahame Woolf


Reviewer

Peter Grahame Woolf


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