A scholar and a singer, acclaimed tenor Ian Bostridge feels totally free with Schubert’s Winterreise

The three-time Grammy winner performs Tuesday in Ottawa with pianist Wenwen Du.

Published Oct 12, 2023 • Last updated 6 hours ago • 4 minute read

Classical singer Ian Bostridge, who will sing in Ottawa on Oct. 17/23, presented by Music and Beyond. Photo by Ian Bostridge / Sim Canetty-Clarke

The acclaimed English tenor Ian Bostridge wrote the book on the Schubert masterpiece that he will sing Tuesday in Ottawa — literally.

At Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre, the three-time Grammy Award winner, accompanied by Canadian pianist Wenwen Du, will perform Winterreise, a song cycle for voice and piano that sets 24 poems about lost or unrequited love by Wilhelm Müller to music.

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Bostridge, 58, was so taken by Winterreise, which means Winter Journey, that he wrote the award-winning and best-selling 2015 book Schubert’s Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession. “What emerged was very free-style and digressive,” Bostridge says.

For Bostridge, a world-class exponent of Lieder (German arts songs that set poetry to music), penning the book was not such a huge stretch. Before he launched his singing career at the age of 27, he studied history and philosophy in university, receiving his doctorate from Oxford University in 1990. From his research came his first book, Witchcraft And Its Transformations, c.1650–1750, which was published in 1997.

Below, Bostridge discusses his diverse pursuits, his love of Schubert’s music, which has prolifically recorded, and his hopes for his concert in Ottawa Tuesday Oct. 17.

English tenor Ian Bostridge, who sings in Ottawa Oct. 17/23 Photo by Kalpesh Lathigra Q: Tell me about what music and singing meant to you when you were growing up and in school. What pieces of music and performers were closest to your heart?

A: I was introduced to Lieder properly at school and fell in love with it. And it’s Lieder that led me to become a singer.

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We sang a lot of Benjamin Britten at school — Friday Afternoons for class singing, the masterly Ceremony of Carols for boys and harp, Noye’s Fludde and the vaudeville he wrote for the Vienna Boys Choir, the Golden Vanity. I played the treacherous captain of the Golden Vanity. We also sang Bach (I sang the first movement of Jauchzet Gott) and Schubert (I sang the Shepherd on the Rock with a boy clarinetist). It wasn’t a specialist music school but we did wonderful, madly ambitious things.

I was also in the local church choir, singing a lot of Purcell, Victoria, Palestrina, Byrd, Gibbons, Tallis. A wonderful start.

Q: Before your singing career began, you studied history and philosophy. How did you balance your interest in music with your academic pursuits?

A: Singing Lieder was simply my hobby. I gave recitals in my college, I attended some courses at the Britten Pears School in Snape (one on French song, one on Britten), I entered some competitions. Having something else to do stopped me from being too competitive, which was useful.

Q: Why did you finally choose to launch your musical career?

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A: I think it was enjoying being in an opera — Britten’s Midsummer Night’s Dream directed by Baz Luhrmann. I’d been trying to keep the singing and academic life going in tandem, but this pushed me over the edge. I realized I really liked acting.

Q: Tell me what the music of Schubert means to you.

A: Schubert is the heart of it all for me. Not just the songs, but the piano sonatas, string quartets and quintet, the trios. Nothing touches me more.

Q: What is your history with Winterreise? What does it mean to you, as a listener and as a performer?

A: I first heard it sung by Peter Schreier or Hermann Prey in London I think. I remember the excitement of buying the latest Fischer-Dieskau recording of the cycle, on LP, the one with Daniel Barenboim. Fischer-Dieskau was my singing idol but I never heard him sing Winterreise. He came to London to sing it at the Royal Opera House with Brendel and I chose to go out with my girlfriend instead.

As a performer it’s at the core of what I do, I feel totally free with it, which allows one to go places that are new every time one performs it.

Q: Why did you write a book about Winterreise?

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A: My first book was on witchcraft belief, 1650-1750. As a singer I carried on writing essays and lectures and they were collected and published by Faber in 2011. My wonderful editor, Belinda Matthews, asked me to write a whole book. I sat with my wife and we thought a book on Winterreise would be interesting and achievable. I could address the cycle song by song, but what emerged was very free-style and digressive.

Q: You’ll perform Winterreise with Canadian pianist Wenwen Du. What history do you have with her?

A: I met Wenwen on a course in Aldeburgh maybe 10 years ago. We went on to tour in the U.S. and China and Korea — Schubert mainly.

We’ve performed Winterreise a number of times, but haven’t been together for seven or eight years so it will be a great pleasure to reunite with this amazing pianist.

Q: What hopes do you have for your performance in Ottawa?

A: I hope to bring the piece above for the audience, to seize them and carry them through the piece so they never really draw breath till the end. And never cough!

Ian Bostridge
Schubert’s Winterreise (Winter Journey)
When: Tuesday, Oct. 17, 7:30 p.m.
Where: Carleton Dominion-Chalmers Centre
Tickets: from $20, at musicandbeyond.ca

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