Liederkranz of the City of New York Presents Franz Schubert's WINTERREISE Tonight

The German Society of the City of New York presents two multimedia concert performances of Franz Schubert's song cycle "Winterreise", the first tonight, April 11th at 7:30 pm, and the second on Sunday, April 13th at 3:00 pm at the Liederkranz of New York, 6 East 87th Street, New York. Admission is free and open to the public; refreshments will be served following the performances.

The New York Concert Opera performances, titled "Die Winterreise" and presented in the order of the original poems by Wilhelm Mueller, are sung by German-American baritone, Ulrich Hartung (photo accompanies this release).

He will be accompanied by a chamber ensemble consisting of piano, viola, cello, woodwind and brass players in an arrangement by Stefan Kozinski, a New York composer/conductor currently at Bremen Opera.

The dramatized performances are semi-staged with multimedia and presented in three parts lasting in total about 1 hour and 15 minutes.

In his 1992 NYU dissertation on "Winterreise," Ulrich Hartung makes the argument that in the 19th century the popular cycle was performed with the songs in the order of the final published version of the poems. Schubert had originally found 12 of these poems in another publication; but, by the time he found all 24 together - and in a different order - in Mueller's collection, progress on printing the first set wouldn't allow any changes, and he was obliged to set the remaining 12 poems as he found them as a second part. Schubert died shortly after giving these songs to the publisher. Some of the obvious text errors have been corrected in most recent recordings and performances, but printed editions of the cycle perpetuate the composer's oversights and hasty transcriptions.

It is commonly acknowledged that the poet's order provides a more dramatic, linear sequence to the cycle, and the NY Concert Opera performances try to highlight that fact. The song cycle is to be presented in three parts - Past, Present, Future - with an instrumental introduction (reflecting the last song) and interludes making each part, as well as the entire piece, an organic whole. The players will join the protagonist in expressing pertinent ambience. The production will also have projected images relevant to the songs' mood and themes making the event a multimedia experience.