Jonathan O'Neill’s Reviews > Schubert's Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession > Status Update
Jonathan O'Neill
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While noting that the mystery created by narrative loose ends is part of what offers this song cycle its power, Bostridge suggests, with plausible reasoning, that we could imagine, for 1.Gute Nacht, a scenario like the one in Rousseau's La Nouvelle Héloïse in which emotional complications ensue due to a young house tutor, of lower economic status, becoming entangled with a virtuous young woman of status
— Jan 19, 2026 01:56AM
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Jonathan O'Neill
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... Lieder is a niche product, even within the niche that is classical music; but 'Winter's Journey' is incontestably a great work of art which should be as much a part of our common experience as the poetry of Shakespeare and Dante, the paintings of Van Gogh and Pablo Picasso, the novels of the Brontë sisters or Marcel Proust.
— Jan 18, 2026 03:28AM
For me, it brings to mind the case of Beethoven and a young Josephine Brunsvik. So until further notice, Ludwig will be taking the place of the sad and alienated hero (fremd) of Schubert's 'Winterreise' in my mind :D