Christian Elsner on Schubert’s “Winterreise” (2 min.)

Anyone who was there will remember the concert performance of Wagner’s Die Walküre in the summer of 2012 and the persuasive interpretation of the role of Siegmund by the tenor Christian Elsner. For Hans Zender’s adaptation of Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, Elsner returned to the Philharmonie in November 2014. To mark this performance with students of the Orchestra Academy and Simon Rattle, the tenor talks here about hearing Zender’s “composed interpretation” for the first time when he was a student; how he was initially taken aback but soon realised just how significantly this unconventional adaptation enriched our view of perhaps the most important song cycle of Romanticism.