Winterreise

Apparently Emory has a monthly chamber music concert series at noon in the art museum. The performance this month was Winterreise by Shubert. I was anticipating something low key put on by the music majors. It turns out this is a much fancier production. The accompanist was one of the music faculty and he had invited one of his former students, who is now a professional opera singer, to come and perform. I have not confirmed it but am suspicious that it is the same singer who is performing this series this month at the Atlanta Opera. The performance was great and the atmosphere perfect: performed on the eve of the 2016 snowpocalypse, the weather was the exact kind of cold foreboding that one would want for a cold, brooding piece. Probably if I knew more about music I could use fancy terminology to describe it. Unfortunately for you I have the musical vocabulary of a slide whistle.
Winterreise is a series of poems set to music. As a group they form a story. The key and stuff changes gradually between each of the tiny songs making a big arc from minor and dreary all the way back to minor and dreary. While the performance was great, I will say the story itself was dumb. It hit it's high point with watching out the window at the postman in the snow and descended to deciding to travel away with a frozen organ grinder.
I don't know if there is a moral to the story. It could be don't go on a winter journey or if you do take Frost along instead of Mueller.