Hermann Prey, Wolfgang Sawallisch - Franz Schubert: Winterreise, D.911, Op. 89 (1988)

Schubert knew madness. He knew it to the depths of his soul and feared it. And out of his fear he wrote the greatest monument to love lost, to death lost, to madness found. He wrote Die Winterreise, the most hopeless art work ever conceived by the despairing mind of man.
Some critics have dismissed baritone Hermann Prey as a mere crooner, as if his beauty of tone and phrasing, his mere concern with beauty, were enough to damn him. They point to his use of subtle portamento, his discreet glissando, and his occasional vibrato at the end of phrases -- to his employment of the simple tools of the singer's trade -- as signs of his lesser status as an interpreter. They say that the singer who would use such vocal tricks could hardly be taken seriously as an artist.
Listen to either of Prey's recordings of Winterreise and say that. Here is a consummate artist whose artistry is at the service of interpreting the music. The second of Prey's recordings is one of the great Winterreises. If its despair is not the cosmic fury of the Flying Dutchman's, its more personal and more intimate despair is all the more moving. This is one man's grief, not the end of the world.