Peter Pears & Benjamin Britten discuss "Die Winterreise" - 1968

Video footage of this great couple who brought so much understanding to everything they approached. Amazing ensemble... amazing love! This brief sampling from Schubert's great cycle "Winterreise", D. 911, includes "Frühlingstraum", "Im Dorfe", and "Der Leiermann". From 1968.

Link to my Peter Pears playlist:
   • Peter Pears (1910-1986)  

XI. "Frühlingstraum" (Dream of Springtime)
He dreams he is wandering through meadows full of flowers and bird-song in May: he heard the cock's crow and opened his eyes, but it was a raven calling in the cheerless darkness. Who could draw the flowers of ice he can see on the windows? He dreams again, of love, and a maiden's kiss, and the joy and bliss of love, but again the crowing wakes him and he sits up alone. He tries to sleep again: when will the leaves at the window be green - when will she hold him in her arms again?

XVII. "Im Dorfe" (In the Village)
People are asleep in the village and the dogs are barking. They dream of many things and have their rest. Let the dogs drive him away so that he does not rest with them - he is finished with all dreaming.

XXIV. "Der Leiermann" (The Hurdy-Gurdy Man)
At the end of the village he finds the old barefoot hurdy-gurdy man, winding away his tunes, but no one has given him a penny, or listens, and even the dogs growl at him. But he just carries on playing, and the poet thinks he will cast in his lot with him.