Schubert didn’t mind that the two-dozen songs of Winterreise, that odyssey of alienation, left his contemporaries scratching their heads. “They please me more than all the others,” he declared, “and in time they will please you as well.” Certainly, posterity has taken them to heart. Today, the cycle is before us constantly, not only in recital (as intended) but also in adaptations of every conceivable description. In the Mirror Room of the fabled Liceu, the Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, who gets the marquee, has prepared an installation intended to “interact” with the gloom and disquiet of the music. The musicians, to whom the true interpretive burden falls, are listed almost as an afterthought. For the record, they are the youthful baritone James Newby and the pianist Joseph Middleton, both British. —M.G.