Winterreise

Description

Tenor Julian Prégardien joins Alpha for several recording projects that will showcase all facets of his talent: Lied, oratorio… His first album for Alpha is dedicated to one of the greatest masterpieces in the history of music, Winterreise, but in an orchestral version composed by Hans Zender in 1993. He wrote for an orchestral setup very different from the ensembles used in the 19th century (including, for example, a soprano saxophone, an accordion, a harmonica, a wind machine, a guitar, and abundant percussion). Hans Zender describes his work as a "creative transformation": "My own interpretation of Winterreise does not seek a new expressive interpretation, but systematically takes advantage of the liberties that each performer normally intuitively assumes: slowing down or speeding up the tempo, transposing into other keys, highlighting and shading colors." On the occasion of a staged version of this Winterreise, Christian Merlin wrote in Le Figaro in 2018: "An enchanting Winterreise (…) Tenor Julian Prégardien, as exceptional a singer as he is a deeply engaged actor, sets the stage ablaze by combining vocal expressiveness, love of words, and theatrical presence with as much sensitivity as intelligence."