Hans Zender’s reimagining of Schubert’s Winterreise transforms a familiar piano cycle into a vivid orchestral journey, blending intimacy and intensity. Tenor Allan Clayton and conductor Nicholas Collon lead Aurora Orchestra through a landscape of fractured memories, where folk-like simplicity collides with Mahlerian grandeur and Berg-like expressionism. Zender preserves Schubert’s vocal line but enriches the sound world with guitar, accordion, melodicas, and striking orchestral effects that evoke storms, frozen tears, and fleeting dreams. This interpretation magnifies the cycle’s raw truth about love, loss, and despair, offering audiences a deeply modern, immersive encounter with one of classical music’s most haunting masterpieces.
★★★★ “Allan Clayton is superb” – The Times
“A fascinating listen” – Gramophone
“A compelling contemporary encounter with one of classical music’s most haunting masterpieces.” – Art Muse London
Presto Music album of the week:
“There’s really nowhere to hide in Zender’s scoring, which demands total synergy between singer and a veritable snowstorm of moving parts, and every unsettling detail lands perfectly here.”