Review | Soprano-pianist Rachel Fenlon blends intensity and innovation in dexterous Hong Kong debut

We are not talking about casual, barroom-style singing and playing here, but possibly the longest, most challengingly intense song cycle ever penned. The shadow of death hangs over much of Schubert’s late music, and Winterreise – a cycle of 24 songs – features around 80 minutes of almost unremitting gloom.

Here, through the poems of Wilhelm Muller, the composer explores the psychological descent of a lonely old traveller through a barren, wintry landscape.

Unlike Die Schone Mullerin (The Beautiful Miller’s Daughter), Schubert’s earlier song cycle that features a semblance of plot and also some hope, Winterreise is more a series of scenes and emotional states, ranging from heartbreak and isolation at the sunnier end of the scale, to utter despair by the end – a fairly typical day at the office for a German Romantic poet.