| December Songs | |
|---|---|
| by Maury Yeston | |
| Year | 1991 |
| Related | Winterreise by Franz Schubert |
| Premiere | |
| Date | May 5, 1991 |
| Location | Weill Recital Hall |
| Performers | Andrea Marcovicci |
December Songs[a] is a song cycle by musical theatre composer-lyricist Maury Yeston. The work is a "retelling" of Franz Schubert's Winterreise, (a song cycle of art songs), with a cabaret sensibility. The songs in both December Songs and Winterreise are linked as a sequence of reflections by the singer taking a lonely walk in winter, thinking back on his or her lost love.
The piece crosses over the line from classical music to Broadway to cabaret.[1] Where the Schubert masterpiece features words by Wilhelm Müller portraying a jilted young man's wandering the snows of the Vienna woods and ultimately sinking into madness, the Yeston lyrics depict a contemporary young woman wandering a snowy Central Park in New York City and finding recovery and hope on her journey.
December Songs pictures in richly varied melodies and striking yet unforced poetic images a worldly young woman, jilted and adrift in a wintry New York City, reading all she sees for commentary on her broken heart.
It has been recorded six times in English, and once each in French, German, and Polish.
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