Specialities and Anniversaries
Schubert's Winterreise
In 1984, with the baritone David Wilson-Johnson, Norris became the first to record Winterreise on a piano of Schubert's time, in the order established by the poet, Wilhelm Müller. In 1985, he published an article in The Musical Times which showed that Liszt's Winterreise transcriptions (hitherto considered incomplete) in fact comprised a re-working of some of the songs into a complete solo piano suite, of which he gave the modern premieres in London and Vienna .
He continues to give performances of Winterreise , on modern and Schubertian pianos, with David Wilson-Johnson (most recently in Amsterdam in January 2005), Philip Langridge (most recently in Porto in December 2005 – and coming up at the Wigmore on June 15 th 2006) and Thomas Guthrie (in Edinburgh in August 2005). www.the-works.org/winterreise.htm
Norris also gave the modern premiere of Schubert's first song-cycle the Kosegarten liederspiel , in Chicago in 1997, and has since recorded it. (Contact Norris for details.) He accompanied its London premiere in the Banqueting House in April 2005.
