My “lecture” of the Winterreise (Winter Journey) does not demand a new expressive interpretation, but instead systematically exercises the freedom which all interpreters allow themselves intuitively, such as: instrumental dilation i. e. acceleration of the pace, transposition into other keys and elaboration of characteristic color timbres. In addition, there are further ways of “reading”; the music; jumping around in the text, repeating certain lines, interrupting the continuity, comparing different expressions of the same phrase … All these new possibilities are subjected to my compositional discipline and form autonomous formal processes which are imposed on Schuberts original. The transformation of the piano tones into a multifaceted orchestra full of resonance is only one of many aspects.
(Hans Zender)