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Winter has officially descended on Manitoba, and while holiday music has dominated the speakers around us, a new album from a Canadian-raised artist is giving voice to the less-than-jolly emotions that people feel at this time of year.
That Canadian artist is the soprano and pianist Rachel Fenlon, whose debut album came out a few weeks ago via Orchid Classics. An ambitious performer of everything from opera to chamber music, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to Samy Moussa, Fenlon’s first album is a recording of one of the most revered song cycles in all of German lieder: Franz Schubert’s Die Winterreise.
Composed in 1827 as Schubert was dying, Die Winterreise (“Winter’s Journey”) contains 24 songs using the poetry of Wilhelm Müller (who himself died that same year). The song cycle tells the harrowing story of a heartbroken lover set to wander the bleak winterscape of the world alone in search of a personal revelation.
The elements of personal revelation reveal themselves naturally in Fenlon’s new recording as she examines Schubert’s songs in a brand-new way. She becomes the first person to both sing and play Die Winterreise on a recording, lending this album not only an element of sheer daring and musical mastery, but also a personal touch that makes you feel as though you have someone who has experienced the depression and loneliness that the winter can bring, and can relate to your own seasonal struggles.
Listen to Fenlon's performance of Die Winterreise's final song "Der Leiermann" ("The Hurdy-Gurdy Man") here.
You can hear excerpts from Rachel Fenlon’s Die Winterreise on Morning Light with Nolan Kehler on Classic 107 every Wednesday morning just after 7:30 a.m. throughout the month of December.