The title Winterreise is referencing our present human situation. Therefore the composition is autobiographical; additionally it refers in its material to Schubert’s Winterreise and to my Bruchstücke zur Winterreise for piano (written as a decollage of the Schubert songs Gute Nacht, Einsamkeit, Der greise Kopf, Die Krähe, Im Dorf, Der Wegweiser, Der Leiermann), as well as to seven poems by Trakl, which to me suggest an inner relationship to the Winterreise.

The composition consists of one movement. It is divided into seven stations which in some sense correspond to the seven poems by Trakl:

I Presto (,Melancholie’)
II Sostenuto (,De profundis’)
III Presto desolato (,Trompeten’)
IV Sostenuto (,An die Schwester’)
V Adagio (,Nachts’)
VI Presto quasi maniaco … Presto infocato (Nachtwandlung’)
VII Sostenuto … Canto animato (,Nachtergebung’)

The seven stations follow each other attacca.

The five instruments of the string quintet (similar to Schubert’s Quintet with two violoncelli) are understood less ‘solistically’ but more ‘symphonically’, like an ‘orchestral’ organism with different registers.

(Friedhelm Döhl)