De Gelderlander 5 out of 5

With the outside temperature still below zero, Schubert’s well-known, almost 200 year old song cycle Winterreise is the music to play indoors now. The new version by Wim ten Have for string quartet and baritone also really gets under the skin and gives me chills. Offering pure beauty and intense emotion.

I never thought that exchanging the piano accompaniment for the use of four strings would produce such a result. But yes, the Ragazze Quartet are when they are supported by the directions of the eminent song accompanist Hans Eijsackers. That pianist knows the ins and outs when it comes to conveying and completing the impact of sung lyrics. I even consider him the successor of the legendary Rudolf Jansen from Arnhem.

Obviously, Eijsackers thought it was strange to step into this adventure for strings without playing along as an advisor. But he looks back on it as an enrichment. No wonder. Eijsackers’ sound ideas found a willing ear in Wim ten Have – once first viola player in the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and a member of no less pioneering ensembles than Concentus Musicus Wien, Leonhardt Consort and La Petite Bande.

I never miss Schubert’s piano part, no matter how genius and familiar. Not even a little? No. The illustrative and in-depth accompaniment takes on a completely different but very intense dimension in this arrangement. The adventure of the young man, disillusioned in love, who leaves home and hearth and heads to his unknown future (read: end) with a one-way trip in the cold, is now brought to life in an incredibly realistic way.

The game of the man with the hurdy-gurdy, the dog barking, the nostalgia, the spring dream (very frisky, very overwhelming), the loneliness, the despair, the fatalism: it all comes in new and more penetrating than ever. This hurdy-gurdy really sounds like the medieval instrument here, and not like a vague reflection, like on the piano. Nobody should be surprised about this surprise. The Ragazze Quartet plays at the cutting edge and stimulates the sentences with its effective approach.

Just listen to his impeccable switching to the sotto voce (whispering) head voice in the song Rast. When you think of a tenor you immediately think of a piece of feminine appearance. With this baritone you become a part of a highly personal, vulnerable, and disarming tenderness.

But what is glowing accompaniment without an inspired storyteller? Martijn Cornet emerges as a gifted singer who forces his listeners to listen breathlessly. His diction, intonation and especially experiencing his text leave nothing to be desired. And the use of voice is phenomenal.

Maarten-Jan Dongelmans - Source