Winterreise

"Boesch's baritone, rich, most of the time quiet or very quiet, and always in tune, has, here and throughout this performance, a brooding thoughtfulness, as if he were discovering for himself and for the first time the depths of desolation....Boesch's and Martineau's is a coherent and agonising narrative, giving the listener the sense of a real, cold, protracted journey for heartbroken resolve to a desolate longing."
(International Record Review)

"Perhaps the distinguishing feature of this version is the accompaniment of Malcolm Martineau, who contrives to bring some new insight to every single song, without ever sounding mannered...Florian Boesch, the possessor of a fine but not especially distinctive voice, takes his cue from him...and the collaboration is complete...The whole cycle moves into silence in a way that I have not heard before."
(BBC Music Five Stars)

"all the more powerful for being so admirably reined-in. Boesch's methodology has often been described as expressionist, though in this instance he's less overtly declamatory than you might expect...The hallucinatory quality of his interpretation is matched by a corresponding vividness in Martineau's playing...It makes for very difficult listening, but is unquestionably superb."
(The Guardian)

Florian Boesch's debut disc on ONYX was the highly acclaimed Schumann Heine Lieder (ONYX4041), and he again teams up with Malcolm Martineau for the journey through the bleak and wintry landscape of Schubert's Winterreise.

Composed in 1827, work on the settings of Wilhem Muller made Schubert agitated and disturbed according to friends. Indeed the songs shocked his friends when first heard - so powerful is the emotional content of the music that it still has the ability to shock and move the listener. The journey starts with 'Goodnight', as our traveller walks away from us into the moonlit snowy landscape. At the end of the cycle 'The Signpost' he takes the path to his death.