Barbican Hall
Schoenberg – Erwartung, op.2 no.1
Eisler – Spruch 1939; Unter den grünen
Pfefferbäumen, In den Hügeln wird
Gold gefunden, Diese Stadt hat mich
belehrt, Zwei Lieder nach Worten von
Pascal, Erinnerung an Eichendorff und
Schumann, Verfehlte Liebe, Spruch
Britten – Songs and Proverbs of William Blake
Wolf – Denk’ es, o Seele!, Um
Mitternacht, Wie sollte ich heiter
bleiben, Auf eine Christblume II,
Blumengruss, Lied eines Verliebten
Schubert – Alinde, D 904, Der Wanderer, D 649, Herbstlied,
D 502, Verklärung, D 59
Brahms – Verzogen, op.72 no.4, Über
die Heide, op.86 no.4, Nachtigallen
schwingen, op.6 no.6
Simon Keenlyside (baritone)
Malcolm Martineau (piano)
An excellent recital from Simon
Keenlyside and Malcolm Martineau. A few, occasional technical fallibilities
aside – fallibilities which, in the greater scheme of things, counted for very
little – Keenlyside’s intelligence, musicality, and sincerity offered a
wonderful partnership with Martineau’s unfailing mixture of the same. There was
no question of the pianist merely ‘supporting’ the singer; this was, as any Lieder-recital must be, a true
partnership.
Schoenberg’s ‘other’ Erwartung opened the recital. Its heady
harmonic fantasy and already sophisticated version of developing variation
marked it out unmistakeably as the composer’s work, hints of Zemlinsky
notwithstanding. (The Dehmel text is another thing Schoenberg and Zemlinsky
have in common.) It was a pity not to hear more from this most woefully
neglected of Lieder composers – and composers
more generally – but at least it was something. Schoenberg’s presence also
offered a little context to Eisler, whose songs emerged as standing somewhere
between the music of his teacher and that of Hindemith. That is not to say that
they are derivative, for they are certainly not, but it is the sort of
connection one’s mind tends to play when ‘placing’ music. The first and last
songs were sung in English, the rest in German. Hearing Brecht’s Spruch 1939 in English brought home not
only the impending conflict between Britain and Germany, but also the plight of
German exiles, be their exile for racial or political reasons – or both. The
piano postlude in Martineau’s hands evoked the persistent if now-distant world
of Schoenberg’s op.11 Piano Pieces, whilst Unter
den grünen Pfefferbäumen sounded more Berg-like. The hell of Hollywood in Diese Stadt hat mich belehrt was vividly
conveyed by darker vocal and piano tone: ‘Paradies und Hölle können eine Stadt
sein.’ If the two Pascal songs might sound closer to the world of Neue Sachlichkeit, then Eisler’s deep
humanity soon seeped through. Erinnerung
an Eichendorff und Schumann offered a suitably backward glance to German
Romanticism, whilst continuing to look forward; there could be no retreat. The final
Brecht proverb, again in English, provided a moving climax, which refused to
conflate sentiment and sentimentality.
Clever programming led into
another proverb, this time the first of Blake’s as set by Britten. Martineau
revelled in the piano virtuosity. Throughout – and perhaps especially in ‘The
Fly’ – one heard Britten’s delight as a great pianist in his instrument. The
pity was that sometimes that display masked, on the composer’s part, a relative
lack of formal sophistication; or rather, that it did not entirely mask such
shortcomings. The devices to which Britten so easily – too easily? – succumbs,
be they explicitly pictorial or more abstract, sounded too obvious following
the underrated, understated example of Eisler. Blake’s anger and vision of course
remained. And even when Keenlyside ran into a little difficulty, in A Poison Tree, his final stanza more
than made up for the lapse with convincing vehemence, the composer’s
dissonances sounding especially plangent in the following fourth proverb. Britten
and Blake make rather odd bedfellows, but this was a committed performance,
with Martineau’s piano wanderings splendidly creepy.
With Wolf, following the
interval, we stood again on more elevated ground. The care taken with shading
in the opening Denk’ es, o Seele! was
exemplary, almost akin to a pattern of versicle and response. Um Mitternacht was imbued with the
darkness of its titular midnight, but also perhaps with its hope, its opening
up of possibilities. The second Auf eine
Christblume song reminded us that Wolf’s harmonies are often but a stone’s
throw from Schoenberg, whilst Schubertian echoes – impetuosity, forlorn hope,
many aspects of harmony and rhythm – haunted the Lied eines Verliebten, providing a telling bridge to Schubert
proper.
Alinde benefited from perfectly judged rhythm
and disarming delivery: a textbook performance, as it were, followed by a rapt
account of Der Wanderer. (Yes, I know, ‘rapt’ is overused,
perhaps beyond the point of cliché, but it really seems the mot juste here.) Verklärung possessed due gravity – and yet, it moved. An echt-Brahmsian piano sound was
immediately conjured up for Verzogen,
Martineau offering just the right degree of harmonic and rhythmic turbulence,
which carried over, albeit in different fashion, into Über die Heide, its darkness finely observed by both artists, yet
never laboured. The ambiguity of Nachtigallen
schwingen was just the ticket for what was anything but a crowd-pleasing
conclusion. ‘Eine Blume seh ich, die nicht blühen will.’
