Winterreise, cycle of 24 songs for male voice and piano composed in 1827 by Austrian composer Franz Schubert, with words by German poet Wilhelm Müller. Schubert was reviewing the publisher’s proofs of the cycle in the weeks before his death, shortly before his 32nd birthday. He had already performed the songs for a gathering of friends, but they had not yet reached the public.
The poetry is written in the voice of a young man who, upon seeing his beloved marry another, sets out on foot in the deepest winter to escape memories of her. His heart is broken, and his life is a torment of memories, dreams, and present pain. Schubert’s music perfectly captures that torrent of emotion with his exquisite control of the harmonies and melodic flow. The subject matter—a wanderer alone with his sorrows—was a popular theme of the Romantic era.