Franz Schubert (1797-1826)DIE WINTERREISE
Gerald Finley (baritone)
Julius Drake (piano)
Hyperion CDA68034 [P] 2014
24 bit 96kHz FLAC files + booklet
Source: Hyperion
‘A Winterreise of vision and searching intensity … Finley’s rich and beautifully modulated baritone voice is also one that nurtures words and can encapsulate the musical images with which Schubert clothes them … for instance in his veiled, hushed and then anguished interpretation of 'Auf dem Flusse’, again with Drake establishing an undercurrent of desolation. Finley can exercise his lyrical powers in such songs as ‘Der Lindenbaum’, ‘Die Krähe’, ‘Letzte Hoffnung’ or ‘Täuschung’ but it is not a lyrical talent alone: more to the point, it is the spectrum of tonal colouring, inflection and instinctive phrasing which lend this performance of Winterreise such an absorbing sense of inner communion with the soul. Nothing is exaggerated; but on an intimate scale Finley and Drake find the nub of the dramatic psychological substance of these songs’ (Gramophone)