A JOURNEY FULL OF EMOTIONS AND SPONTANEITY
The Estonian pianist and composer Kristjan Randalu has already received numerous international awards, including a Grammy nomination. He has been twice honored with the Estonian Music Award and was featured on the Best of 2020 list of The New York City Jazz Record. His recordings have been released by renowned jazz labels like ECM and Enja. His last album Dichterliebe was released on Berlin Classics, in which he dedicates himself purely to the piano, performing Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe song cycle. For his current album Schubert Voyage, also released by Berlin Classics, the pianist has chosen another Romantic song cycle. This time, it is Franz Schubert’s Winterreise, Op. 89. Instead of working solo again, he has teamed up with the bassoonist Martin Kuuskmann, who has also been awarded the Estonian Music Award multiple times. For their joint Winterreise, they blend elements of classical music and jazz.
Franz Schubert’s Winterreise is based on 24 poems by Wilhelm Müller. The song cycle tells the story of a lonely wanderer who, after a failed love, walks through a wintry landscape. In the songs, he reflects on his sadness, despair, and inner conflict, while grappling with memories and longings. Essential themes that must have also occupied Franz Schubert. By the time he composed Winterreise, Schubert was already suffering from syphilis and did not live to see the work’s publication in 1828. His music conveys the emotional depth and melancholic mood of the texts. Kristjan Randalu and Martin Kuuskmann capture this melancholic atmosphere in their purely instrumental interpretations, shedding contemporary light on these romantic compositions.
For his album, Kristjan Randalu selected 14 songs from the Winterreise cycle for arrangement and supplemented them with four original compositions: “Schreck,” “Vorschau,” “Winterschlaf,” and “Nachtwind.” In his Winterreise, the bassoon essentially takes on the role of the singer. The keys remain the same as in Schubert’s version, while the time signatures and moods change. For example, in “Gute Nacht,” continuous triplets can be heard on the piano over Schubert’s original 2/4 time signature. This minimalist polymeter creates an unsettled pulse that enhances the dark mood of the piece. “Basically, everything is notated except for Kristjan’s improvisations on the piano. The audience won’t always be able to tell what’s written and what’s not. I have a few solo parts that go through the roof. These solo parts were actually composed and written out by Kristjan,” explains the Estonian-American bassoonist.
