F. Schubert. "Winterreise", early edition, 1828, or later

Franz Schubert

Winterreise von Wilhelm Müller. In Musik gesetzt für eine Singstimme mit Begleitung des Pianoforte von Franz Schubert. 89 ^stes Werk. I.^te [...['I': in ms.]I.^te] Abtheilung [D.911], Vienna: bey Tobias Haslinger, Musikverleger, im Hause der ersten österr: Sparkasse am Graben No. 572 [1828 or later]

two volumes in one, 49 and 35 pages, oblong folio (25.3 x 33.8cm), engraved throughout, plate numbers 5101-5124, modern green calf, gilt lettering, some scattered light spotting, browning to edges of first part 

 AN EARLY EDITION OF PROBABLY THE GREATEST SONG CYCLE EVER COMPOSED.

It is a bleak journey through winter to death; a journey from darkness to the most unfathomable bleakness in twenty-four songs from Gute Nacht ("Goodnight"), to the famously desolate Der Leiermann ("The hurdy-gurdy man"), with its piano-accompaniment representation of the relentless drone of the hurdy-gurdy. The cycle is a product of Schubert’s penultimate year, 1827, and was published in the following, Schubert correcting the proofs to the second part on his deathbed.

LITERATURE:

Hoboken, xiii 349 and 352