Schubert's 'Winterreise' Paints Bleak Landscape For Bill T. Jones
As snowstorms hit the country today, All Things Considered revisits a vivid story that choreographer and dancer Bill T. Jones shared about one winter song. It originally aired Dec. 13, 2011.
"Winterreise," — or "Winter Journey" — by Franz Schubert is a song cycle about a solitary traveler in a savage winter whose heart is frozen in grief. Jones chose the last song in that song cycle: "Der Leiermann," or "The Hurdy-Gurdy Man."
"For me, it's the musical arrangement underneath," Jones tells All Things Considered host Melissa Block. "It speaks about a bleak landscape. And this bleak landscape takes me back to a day when I was in fourth grade out on the edge of town, looking at a snow-covered highway many, many yards away from my window — I should've been paying attention, but I was dreaming.
"And then I saw a lone figure walking across on a very, very cold day," he continues, "and you know how it is when the wind blows and you have to turn your back against the wind, and I felt so sorry for that person, and then I realized it was my father. That my father, who was completely out of work, had been the director of his own business as a contractor in the heyday of the migrant stream back in the late '50s, but now that business had died. He was up in the chilly North with family, broke and sick, and he had to get to this very insignificant job in a factory, miles and miles away. A black man with no car, trying to hitchhike, and no one picking him up, and he has to walk that 10 miles to get to the factory. And I'm sitting in this warm classroom, getting educated, not paying attention to the teacher, and suddenly feeling torn between two worlds. And this music, when I hear it, I feel for my father. There's something about art that can be, yes, depressing, but helps us bear the pain through sheer beauty and intensity."
Jones' emotions at that moment were understandably dramatic. But, as he says, they were also intensely complicated. He couldn't just run out of his classroom and bring his father inside.
"One of the reasons I was in school was so that I didn't have to be out there with him," Jones says. "And that was the painful thing about this class-climbing that we all in this country are subjected to: We're supposed to do better than our parents. And did I want the whole class to say, 'Look! Look out there; there's my father, impoverished, freezing, walking by the road!' It was a very strange moment, Melissa, very strange. I was, in a way, paralyzed, doing what I should do, and not knowing what I wanted to do."
This music, and its accompanying experience, have given Jones valuable perspective.
"It's taken on a greater weight over the years. There's now more and more. My body speaks to the body I saw from a child's distance, from a parent. I understand him inside and even outside now. I'm not afraid of aging, but the idea of what is success in life, what is a life well-spent. His dreams were behind him at that point; where are my dreams now? I love him so much for getting out there that day, with no car, and really not talking to us about it, not complaining, just facing it alone. I love him so much, but did I ever tell him I love him? Probably not."
Bill T. Jones is the co-founder of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, and executive artistic director of New York Live Arts. His company premieres its latest work, Story/Time, next month.
All Things Considered wants your winter song stories. What do you listen to when it's cold or dark, when you need to warm up or celebrate the chill of the season? Tell us about a song and the memory it evokes here.
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Transcript
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Siegel.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block. Today's snowstorm blanketing much of the East, from Tennessee up to Maine, prompted us to go back into our archives to a conversation I had a few years ago with the celebrated dancer and choreographer Bill T. Jones about an icy winter memory. We had asked him to a pick a winter song that evokes the season and he chose a song from "Winterreise," winter journey by Franz Schubert.
It's his song cycle about a solitary traveler in a savage winter whose heart is frozen in grief. Bill T. Jones chose the last song in that song cycle, "Der Leiermann" or "The Hurdy-Gurdy Man."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG "DER LEIERMANN")
DIETRICH FISCHER-DIESKAU: (Singing in foreign language)
BILL T. JONES: For me, it's the musical arrangement underneath that speaks about a bleak landscape. And this bleak landscape takes me back to a day when I was in fourth grade, out on the edge of town looking out on a snow-covered highway many, many yards away from my window. I should have been paying attention, but I was dreaming.
And then I saw a lone figure walking across that on a very, very cold day. And you know how it is when the wind blows and you have to turn your back against the wind?
BLOCK: Oh, yeah.
JONES: And I felt so sorry for that person, and then I realized that person was my father.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG "DER LEIERMANN")
JONES: That my father, who was completely out of work - he had been the director of his own business, as a contractor in the heyday of the migrant stream back in the late '50s. But now, that business had died. He was up in the chilly North with his family, broke and sick, and he had to get to this very insignificant job in a factory miles and miles away - a black man with no car, trying to hitchhike and no one picking him up, and he has to walk that 10 miles to get to the factory.
And I'm sitting in this warm classroom getting educated, not paying attention to the teacher, and suddenly feeling torn between two worlds. And this music, when I hear it, I feel for my father. And there's something about art that can be, yes, depressing, but helps us bear the pain through just sheer beauty and intensity.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG "DER LEIERMANN")
FISCHER-DIESKAU: (Singing in foreign language)
BLOCK: I'm imagining that your impulse would have been to run out of that classroom and get your dad inside, warm him up somehow?
JONES: No. It was more complicated than that because that was my job, to be in school. One of the reasons I was in school was so that I did not have to be out there with him. And that was the painful thing about this sort of class-climbing that we all, in this country, are subjected to. We're supposed to do better than our parents.
And did I want the whole class to say look, look out there, there's my father, impoverished, freezing, walking in the road? It was a very strange moment, Melissa, very strange. I was, in a way, paralyzed, doing what I should do, and not knowing what I wanted to do.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG "DER LEIERMANN")
FISCHER-DIESKAU: (Singing in foreign language)
BLOCK: Bill, did you ever tell your father that you had seen him that day?
JONES: Oh, wow. No. I never did. I thought it would have embarrassed him. Should I have? I wonder. I never did.
BLOCK: That must be such a painful memory to turn to when you hear this song.
JONES: Well, and that's what I say. I love this song because this is very much in the romantic spirit. This whole "Winterreise" is in the feverish, depressed mind of a young man who has come unhinged because he's lost the one he loves. And he wanders ever deeper into this bleak wilderness with these thoughts of revenge and memories of happiness, and finally ends up listening - almost in madness - to this organ grinder. And, of course, the organ grinder is life itself and the passage of time.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG "DER LEIERMANN")
FISCHER-DIESKAU: (Singing in foreign language)
BLOCK: The narrator of this song is listening to this hurdy-gurdy player. The player is barefoot, standing on the ice barefoot, staggering. And here's the killer part: No one is listening to him, not even the dogs.
JONES: However, the narrator is listening, but has he so much disappeared that he is no one? Ah, yes. The young man is doomed, but it's sweet, it's haunting, it's delicious - almost like freezing to death. When we freeze to death, we go to sleep. And that's just at the end of that cycle and I imagine that's what Schubert was trying to suggest. It's beautiful and painful, which is what I want from art.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG "DER LEIERMANN")
BLOCK: Listening to this again after all those years, you're taken right back to that classroom and that image on the freezing snow?
JONES: That has been - it's taken on a greater weight over the years because now, more and more, my body speaks to the body that I saw from a child's distance from a parent. I understand him inside and even outside now. I'm not afraid of aging, but the idea of what is success in life; what is a life well spent? His dreams were behind him at that point. Where are my dreams now?
I loved him so much for getting out there that day with no car, and really not talking to us about it, not complaining, just facing it alone. I love him so much, but did I ever tell him I loved him? Probably not.
BLOCK: I bet you showed him.
JONES: Ah.
BLOCK: I bet you did.
JONES: He liked me. He liked me. Yes, he did. And that's so important, so important.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG "DER LEIERMANN")
FISCHER-DIESKAU: (Singing in foreign language)
BLOCK: Well, Bill T. Jones, thank you so much.
JONES: Oh, thank you very much, Melissa.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG "DER LEIERMANN")
FISCHER-DIESKAU: (Singing in foreign language)
BLOCK: That's a 1955 recording of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau performing "Der Leiermann" from Schubert's "Winterreise," an encore presentation of a winter song memory from Bill T. Jones. He's cofounder of the Bill T. Jones Arnie Zane Dance Company, and executive artistic director of New York Live Arts.
Now, along with that powerful memory from childhood, Mr. Jones also had another thought for a second winter song suggestion that just might be the perfect pick me up for a blustery snowy day.
JONES: You know, I did consider - I don't know if you remember an old K-star hit, (singing) the sun is shining, da dee da dum, but I can weather the storm. It's a little campy, a little offhanded.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG "I'VE GOT MY LOVE TO KEEP ME WARM")
ELLA FITZGERALD: (Singing) What do I care how much it may storm? I've got my love to keep me warm. Off with my overcoat, off with my glove. I need no overcoat. I'm burning with love. My heart's on fire. The flame grows higher so I will weather the storm. What do I care...
SIEGEL: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, from NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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