Works influenced by Winterreise

Stephen Rodgers

Dear music theory hive mind: I am preparing to teach a course called Winterreise: Before and After, which looks at earlier works that influenced Schubert's cycle and later works that it influenced. I'm looking in particlar for any works (19th century to the present) that seem to have been inspired by Winterreise in some way or another. I'm thinking, for example, of Mahler's Lieder eines fahrenden gesellen, Britten's Winter Words, Vaughan Williams's Songs of Travel, Maury Yeston's December Songs, and even a 2014 version for voice and accordion with indie rock singer Corn Mo and accordionist William Schimmel. Theatrical and movie versions are fair game, as are literary adpations (like One Evening, a work that intersperses performance of Winterreise songs with readings of Beckett texts). Feel free to respond to this post or email me directly at ser@uoregon.edu. Many thanks!

 

 

 

Gabriel Venegas

​Hans Zender's composed interpretation of Schubert's Winterreise.

 

 

 

Stan Kleppinger

Reinbert de Leeuw composed a terrifyingly interesting "arrangement" of Schubert and Schumann lieder, called Im Wunderschönen Monat Mai, for an augmented Pierrot ensemble (including Sprechstimme). It includes several songs from Winterreise; here's a sample that starts with “Im Dorfe" performed by the Schönberg Ensemble with Barbara Sukowa.

(If you haven't heard “Erlkönig" with Sprechstimme before, well, then you probably sleep better at night than I do now.)

There is a published score, though I haven't seen it; the recording seems to be obscure as well. I found a recording on Amazon here:

https://www.amazon.com/wundersch-Schumann-Schubert-Schonberg-2007-10-09/dp/B01K8QGNY2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1479480330&sr=8-3&keywords=sukowa+mai

...but WorldCat will serve you better to get a copy, I think. (The Music Library here at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln has it, at least!)

Brent Yorgason

Here's IMDB's list of credited uses of Schubert's music, and there are perhaps a dozen references to songs from Winterreise: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0006280/

However, there are also a lot of uncredited uses of Schubert's music as underscoring, particularly in early Japanese films, I think. (Schubert has always been "big in Japan.") I've been hearing a lot of it lately in films like Aoi sanmyaku (1949) and Karumen kokyo ni kaeru (1951), but IMDB does not note any of this. There may also have been something from Winterreise in the German biopic Leise flehen meine Lieder (1933) that I just watched the other day. I unfortunately don't have specifics for you. If I had known, I would have been paying better attention!

Stephen Rodgers

Thank you for the suggestions, everyone! Much appreciated.