The walk in the cold winter night seemed brisk and refreshing as feather-like snowflakes gently kissed his cheeks and melted. The naked trees hung in despair, with their white linen that clung to them along with the frosted leaves. In the bleak chill of the forest footsteps are echoed in the fresh fallen snow. A lone traveler trudges slowly but steadily through the cold white landscape of winter.
The audience learns in stages of traveler’s rejection by a fickle woman, his despairing flight from the town where she lived, his growing weariness with the society that has so cruelly rejected him, and his eventual grim resolution to forge ahead to the death that will finally put an end to his journey. This is the dramatic script for the cycle of …show more content…
The lonely journey that begins with the steady monotonous chords of "Gute Nacht" ends with the haunting organ-grinder melody of "Der Leiermann." Between these two pieces can be found a variety of short but detailed character studies of the forlorn figure at the center of the story. It is the purpose of this paper to examine the musical elements that Schubert uses to build the dramatic structure of the Winterreise texts. Schubert does an excellent job of creating different effects by playing with different instrumentation to create certain sound effects. For example, in "Die Wetterfahne" the effect of the wind on the weather is compared to its effect inside the wanderer's heart as he cries, “The wind plays inside hearts as it does on the roof, but not so loudly." A few other examples can be found in "Wasserflut" (Water Flood), the text describes tears flowing from his eyes as the snow absorbs his anguish, contrasted to the song "Gefrorne Tränen"(Frozen Tears) in which frozen teardrops fall from the wanderer’s eyes like ice. Snow and ice recur as themes as well, particularly in the first half of the