Winterreise, the Winter Journey, brings both the performer and the listener to the fundamental questions of humanity and existence. The human and social levels of the work remain pertinent and current.

On the way home from the first night of recording, in Friedrichstraße train station, a man boards the S-Bahn train. He seems lost; his gaze wanders blurrily, his feet are bare. In Berlin, this sight is all too common; homeless people are numerous but marginalised in Berlin’s sprawling city. The man journeys only one station and then disembarks: we watch him on his wobbly course until the automatic doors of the train close. We think of Winterreise’s last song Der Leiermann, the hurdy-gurdy player: invisible, alone, on his way, without a destination.

A prize winner of several competitions including the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg, Finnish baritone Arttu Kataja graduated from Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and became a member of the Berlin State Opera in 2006 performing such parts as Conte, Figaro, Guglielmo, Papageno, Marcello, Belcore, Musiklehrer and Besenbinder, to name but a few. Guest engagements have led him to Theater an der Wien, Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse, Teatro Municipal in Santiago de Chile, Staatsoper Hamburg, Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Finnish National Opera and Savonlinna Opera Festival as well as to Tokyo, Shanghai and Seoul. He is a versatile recitalist and concert singer with repertoire ranging from baroque to contemporary music.