Mark Padmore & Mitsuko Uchida

If Schubert’s haunting, visceral Winterreise cycle is the Mount Everest of classical song, who better to scale its heights than two of the world’s most esteemed and empathetic chamber musicians? Renowned Schubertians, tenor Mark Padmore and pianist Mitsuko Uchida together tread a path of existential discovery in Schubert’s setting of Wilhelm Müller’s poems about love and loss, inviting us into the anguished inner world of the poem’s protagonist and bringing to vivid life the barren winter landscape of his solitary wanderings. Reviewing a 2022 performance of this music, the New York Times stated, “It’s difficult to avoid superlatives when writing about Mitsuko Uchida and Mark Padmore.… As a pairing, [they] are wellsprings of wisdom and sensitivity, a truly equal partnership. The performances that result from their deep study of these scores are unpretentious master classes in the art of letting music speak for itself.”