Hyperion Records

The intention of the alternative texts provided for five of the songs in Liszt’s Zwölf Lieder [aus] Winterreise may be compared with the principles he employed in the double texts of the Schwanengesang transcriptions, except that here Liszt did not feel the need to offer multiple solutions in all twelve cases. In Die Nebensonnen the recitative in the second verse is rearranged so that the tremolos are pitched above the melody rather than below; in Mut one or two thornier difficulties are smoothed over, and the newly-shaped ending for a contracted keyboard is a happily found idea. The differences in Der Lindenbaum are confined to the last verse where the long trill amidst the right-hand chords is dropped in favour of re-shaping the melody in broad arpeggiated chords.

In the last verse of Das Wirtshaus, tremolos give way to simpler triplets and produce a markedly desolate effect; and in Der stürmische Morgen Liszt’s leaner alternative text in proud bare octaves is somewhat closer to Schubert’s original. Im Dorfe remains unaltered, but since it is framed by two statements of Der stürmische Morgen, as before, it needs must be repeated here.

from notes by Leslie Howard © 1995