Winterreise – Winter's Journey

• Charles Robert Stephens, baritone
• Lorenzo Marasso, piano

Franz Schubert's art songs are foundational to the lied genre, with Die Winterreise standing as the pinnacle of his lieder. This song cycle is notable for its vivid musical depictions of a heart wounded by lost love and resigned to the inevitability of death.

Envisioned as a journey into the winter cold, it sets to music a selection of poems by Wilhelm Müller, published in 1823 and 1824 under the title Seventy-Seven Poems from the Posthumous Papers of a Travelling Horn-Player. Unlike Schubert's earlier song cycle, Die Schöne Müllerin (also set to Müller's texts), Winterreise resembles a series of snapshots rather than a continuous narrative, as all significant events have occurred before the story begins. The narrator-singer engages in a dialogue with his own heart, alternating between reflection, questioning, irony, and eventual resignation. In this contemplative state, he drifts between his dreams and the harsh reality he faces. The central theme is a failed love affair. The wanderer's beloved has ended their relationship to marry a wealthier man, leaving him desolate and alone with his thoughts, which traverse dark paths as he moves through villages and countryside after leaving her home.

Composed in two parts in 1827, the year before Schubert's death, the work reflects his terminal illness. However, Müller's poems provide fitting imagery for such a presentation of moods, with recurring themes of loneliness and isolation, key elements of the emerging Romantic movement in art.

The characters the narrator interacts with are elements of the natural landscape (sun, wind, trees and leaves, flowers, rivers and snow, crows and ravens), which symbolically accompany his journey. Schubert's achievement in setting these poems to music lies in bringing these images to life, not only through the singer's melody but especially through the vividness of the piano score. The piano serves as more than mere accompaniment; it often represents the external surroundings through which the singer travels.

Yet, a paradox exists within this piano score. It is both richly evocative and unusually austere. Benjamin Britten, in discussing Schubert's artistry, describes the performers' challenge in these terms:

"One of the most alarming things I always find, when performing this work, is that there is actually so little on the page. He gets the most extraordinary moods and atmospheres with so few notes. And there aren't any gloriously wishy-washy arpeggios to help you. You've got to create the mood by these few chords. He leaves it all very much up to the performers."

Concert will be held in the private residence of Mr. David Corry (Address: 419 W Lee St, Seattle, WA 98119, USA).

Join us at 7:15pm for a pre-concert talk. Concert begins at 8pm. Admission includes the pre-concert talk, the performance, accompanied by drinks and appetizers. You can park anywhere in the street close to the residence. Parking is unmetered and unrestricted.

About Seattle Chamber Orchestra

Founded in 2021, Seattle Chamber Orchestra seeks to bring music lovers tantalizing combinations of the traditional and modern, performed by world-class professional musicians. Brought to life through thoughtful programming that educates as much as it inspires, SCO seeks to reinvigorate live classical music, which has suffered most of all during the pandemic, by providing opportunities musicians and audiences to explore new music and challenge established boundaries.

About Charles Robert Stephens, baritone

Charles has enjoyed a career spanning a wide variety of roles and styles in opera and concert music. His performances have shown "a committed characterization and a voice of considerable beauty." (Opera News, 1995) At the New York City Opera he sang the role of Professor Friedrich Bhaer in the New York premiere of Adamo's Little Women, and was hailed by the New York Times as a "baritone of smooth distinction." Other New York City Opera roles since his debut as Marcello in 1995 include Frank in Die Tote Stadt, Sharpless in Madame Butterfly, and Germont in La Traviata. He has sung on numerous occasions at Carnegie Hall in a variety of roles with the Opera Orchestra of New York, the Oratorio Society of New York, the Masterworks Chorus, and Musica Sacra.

Now based in Seattle, Charles has sung with the Seattle Symphony, Tacoma and Spokane Symphonies and Opera Companies, Portland Chamber Orchestra and many other orchestras and opera companies in the Pacific Northwest. He joined the roster of the Seattle Opera in 2010 for the premiere of Amelia by Daron Hagan.

Recent collaborations with early music expert Stephen Stubbs include the role of Haman in Handel's Esther with Pacific Musicworks as part of the Seattle Handel Festival, Messiah with Portland Baroque and the role of Tiresias in the Boston Early Music Festival's lavish production of Steffani's Niobe, Queen of Thebes. A long association with Maestro Gary Thor Wedow has recently led to two performances with the Seattle Symphony: Messiah and "Opera Festival."

About Lorenzo Marasso, piano

Lorenzo Marasso is an impassioned and sympathetic conductor, concert pianist, chamber musician, educator and radio host. Dubbed the "king of repertoire," Lorenzo's creative programming reveals lesser known masterpieces and rarely performed arrangements. Lorenzo's performances have been broadcast in numerous media outlets, including Seattle's 98.1 Classical King FM and NPR. In 2021 Lorenzo founded the Seattle Chamber Orchestra and is serving now as the ensemble's music director. In the same year he also started hosting a weekly radio program called Dress Rehearsal on 107.3FM KBFG Seattle. Equally inspired by contemporary music, Lorenzo has commissioned and performed world premieres of new works by several international composers who have written and dedicated pieces to him. In July 2020 he completed the Invention Project, a commission of new pieces for piano inspired by J.S. Bach's Inventions and Sinfonias. Further commissions included works composed by Michael Finnissy, Edward Cowie and Bernhard Lang.