Winters Journey is a song cycle by Franz Schubert. The last song in the piece is called Der Leiermann which translates to The Hurdy-Gurdy Man. The song cycle is epic, and sad, and this piece wraps it up with an ambiguous ending to the cycle. The song is to be sung and accompianied by a piano, but I decided to use seven tracks to express it. I used one track for the 5-meter grand piano to play the accompaniment without the bass. I used a bass guitar sample for the drone. I also backed the bass guitar with samples of a Fender Rhodes Mark II and also my distant grand samples processed through multiple echos. The synthesizers playing the voice part is multi-oscillator Moog’s using a unison box, double tracked with slightly differing tunings and delay settings.
It is my intention to record the vocal and mix it as well. I will record the vocal and process it through a vocoder to give an eerie feeling. The text below is the English translation used by the Irish baritone Harry Plunket-Greene for his siminal recording of this piece in 1934. There is a great article about this here.
Yonder stands a poor old hurdy gurdy man
and with frozen fingers plays as best he can
Barefoot shuffling sidelong on the icy way
not a single penny in his empty tray
not a single penny in his empty tray
no one seems to heed him no one stops to hear
only snaring mongrels care to venture near
little does he trouble come whatever may
still his Hurdy Gurdy drones and drones away
still his Hurdy Gurdy drones and drones away
wonderful old fellow shall I with you go
will your drone your music to my sons of War
Use the embedded SoundCloud player below if you would like to hear my rendition of this piece.