Winterreise is probably the peak of Schuberts production of lieds. Based on Müllers cycle of poems, Winterreise is an inner journey through solitude and death. Where will the wanderer be able to rest? He seems doomed and even death will not accept him in one of the lieder. Schubert wrote this music for Johann Michael Vogl, a liric baritone, but the cicle has been song for many kinds of voice: tenors like Patzak and Pears, basses like Talvela and the unforgetable Greindl ( the blakest of all), the great soprano Lotte Lehmann or the famous baritone Fischer Dieskau, for many the best performer of this music. At least for my taste Dieskau is impressive but overnuanced ( just like Anders perfomarce is overdramatical). The first time i heard this cd, about a year ago, i was blown up. What a voice! What an extraordinary spiritual unity! Hotter takes a very interesting point of view when he performs the wanderer. He is not the wanderer who suffer but a third who feels compassion for him. Like God who feels compassion of the sinner. And you can feel this compassion everywhere on this cd. For me, Hotter, Dieskau, Pears, Greindl and Patzak are the references in Winterreise