This Winterreise is beautifully put together in every way: interpretation, recording, liner notes, artwork - even if Rose's sepulchral bass is never quite as rhythmically rigorous as Matthewman's superb accompanying.

his performance often recalls the Wotanesque stoicism of that great Wagnerian Hans Hotter...Like Hotter before him, Rose can effectively soften and lighten his timbre, while he and his pianist partner Gary Matthewman choose their tempi discerningly...Rose leaves one with a sense of a vast burden of suffering determindly endured against appalling odds

it acquires – literally – added depth in this beautiful reading by the Grammy-winning British bass Matthew Rose, who sings it mostly a fourth lower than its original key. Schubert himself called them "terrifying" songs and confessed to his own emotional exhaustion at having written them. Rose and Matthewman, while in full, expressive form, convey that sense of being utterly wrung out.