As a stranger I arrived, as a stranger I shall leave. – Wilhelm Müller. Called a “poet” by The New York Times, Menahem Pressler is the ideal pianist for these lines from Wilhelm Müller’s poem, chosen by Schubert for his Lieder and depicting the isolation, torment, and malaise typical of the Romantics at the beginning of the 19th century. Winter symbolizes the inevitable death that awaited Schubert and arrived at the young age of 30, barely a year after the publication of his Lieder cycle.

Photo: © Aline Paley