Yes, I'm afraid critics (and performers!) don't often cure blind spots. "You will get used to it, Walter" is a great line--but DID Legge actually get used to it, or to any other point on which he didn't see eye to eye with Klemperer? I fear not!
So perhaps I'm doomed to carry my prejudice against Winterreise to my grave.
But I must retract that remark about "bad German doggerel." Anyone who is capable of stringing together a sentence in German, of any quality, has my unstinted & unmitigated admiration. I've been wrestling with the awful language (Mark Twain's adjective, not mine) for exactly 50 years, and I still haven't made any significant progress with it. If indeed all German babies talk the German language, and I'm reliably informed that they do, then the whole nation must be a nation of geniuses, that's all I can say.
I must also retract the totally unjust accusation that Winterreise is "interminable." On the contrary, the work does have a termination, as I of all people should know, because it's the only part of the thing that I enjoy.
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