(no subject)
I've been working with Winterreise for a while now, and every once in a while I get a feeling of hope pervading the piece, a deep undercurrent, but it wasn't until now that I truly believed it.
One of the questions a performer faces when he interprets the work is "Why?" Why is it that this nameless wanderer keeps going? What is it that drives him into the wilderness? What is the thing he seeks that would motivate him through these horrible conditions, these wretched emotions, the blistering isolation? Why not go to a town where he can find real rest?
I think the drive is hope. He no longer sees himself as able to coexist with the world, he sees it as hostile, that there is nothing left for him there. He pines so deeply for his lover, but in his heart he sees the misery his longing causes. He wishes so deeply for the love itself, but sees what he is doing as foolish. It isn't until the second to last piece that he truly recognizes this, yet what keeps this man churning through the world for the twenty two other pieces?
I believe it is his hope, to touch something deeper then all the things he knows. This is not a journey that could be taken with someone, it had to be taken with himself, the moonlight his only companion. He had to sit in his pain, meditate on these places in his heart, and nothing drives us to self-reflection like hope. He hopes for many things, at one point even death, but it is the attraction to these fleeting unknowable depths that continues to pull him into the cold winter night.
One of the questions a performer faces when he interprets the work is "Why?" Why is it that this nameless wanderer keeps going? What is it that drives him into the wilderness? What is the thing he seeks that would motivate him through these horrible conditions, these wretched emotions, the blistering isolation? Why not go to a town where he can find real rest?
I think the drive is hope. He no longer sees himself as able to coexist with the world, he sees it as hostile, that there is nothing left for him there. He pines so deeply for his lover, but in his heart he sees the misery his longing causes. He wishes so deeply for the love itself, but sees what he is doing as foolish. It isn't until the second to last piece that he truly recognizes this, yet what keeps this man churning through the world for the twenty two other pieces?
I believe it is his hope, to touch something deeper then all the things he knows. This is not a journey that could be taken with someone, it had to be taken with himself, the moonlight his only companion. He had to sit in his pain, meditate on these places in his heart, and nothing drives us to self-reflection like hope. He hopes for many things, at one point even death, but it is the attraction to these fleeting unknowable depths that continues to pull him into the cold winter night.