Wigmore Hall
Frühlingsglaube, D 686; Lied eines Schiffers an die Dioskuren, D 360; Rastlose
Liebe, D 138a; Abendstern, D 806; Der Jüngling and der Quelle, D 300; Am Flusse, D 766; Der
Jüngling auf dem Hügel, D 702; Der
Schiffer, D 536; Der Doppelgänger,
D 957; An den Mond, D 193; Über Wildemann, D 884; Nachtstück, D 672; Der Einsame, D 800; An die
Laute, D 905; Der Musensohn, D
764; Sehnsucht, D 879; Schäfers Klagelied, D 121; Die Liebe hat gelogen, D 751; Romanze aus ‘Rosamunde’, D 797/3b; Wer
sich der Einsamkeit ergibt, D 478b;
Wer nie sein Brot mit Tränen ass, D
480c; An die Türen will ich schleichen, D 479b; Schwanengesang, D 744.
Ilker Arcayürek (tenor)
Simon Lepper (piano)
The first thing that struck me
in this Wigmore Hall recital was the palpable sincerity of Ilker Arcayürek’s
artistry. Sincerity is not everything, of course; what we think of as such may
even be carefully constructed artifice, although not, I think, here. Stravinsky
may or may not even have been correct to call it a sine qua non (before, in imitable style, demolishing the claim that
it was in anyway enough). Whether there is sincerity in the deliberate presentation
of insincerity and in irony is, perhaps, a dialectical question for another
day. (For what it is worth, I think the answer is probably ‘yes – probably’.’
Artistic sincerity is surely, however, a good starting-point, a fine way to
draw the listener in. And so it was here from Arcayürek, ably accompanied by
Simon Lepper, in a wide-eyed (wide-voiced?!) Frühlingsglaube, properly vernal.
The programme’s progression
made sense too. Without overt didacticism there were paths, musical, verbal,
thematic to follow, to make one’s one way through this Schubert recital.
Musical – in this case, rhythmic – discipline enabled Mayrhofer’s song to the
Dioscuri to take us further on our way, whilst the sadness of his Abendstern shone through in voice and
piano alike. In between, a rastlose
(restless) account of Goethe’s Rastlose
Liebe likewise relied upon the freedom born of such discipline. The same
poet’s – and, of course, composer’s – Am Flusse
flowed nicely, without a wearisome attempt to make it into something it is not.
The Jüngling auf dem Hügel (youth on the hill) could then look down
upon what we had seen, heard, experienced so far, the music the key to the
words and vice versa, Schubert and his
present-day collaborators winningly attentive to the alchemic balance of Lieder-performance. The death knell rang
out on the piano perhaps all the more clearly, at any rate movingly, for the
lack of underlining. We were trusted to listen for ourselves. Impetuous relief,
then, came at just the right time with Der
Schiffer, prior to a wan and worldweary Doppelgänger,
Arcayürek’s voice rising to encompass fear, anger, and defiance, although never
to the neglect of more ‘purely’ musical values. That such moonlit drama could
shade into reminiscences of Beethoven’s moonlight in An den Mond spoke well not only of that particular performance but
of the thought that had gone behind its placement. Winds and mists brought the
first half to a Romantic close, vocal tone and mood their agent, yet precision
too. It takes art to evoke rather than fall into the imprecise.
Der
Einsame brought piano onomatopoeia
(the crickets at night) from Lepper and an apt lightness of approach from Arcayürek,
making me think he would be a dab hand at first-rate operetta: Offenbach, or
occasional Johann Strauss. There was nothing tedious to the performance of a
song which, in the wrong hands, can sometimes become just that. Pristine
neoclassicism and a little second-stanza naughtiness enlivened Die Laute and its solitary lamp: a
different yet related vision of night-time. Likewise Sehnsucht: another well-judged change of mood. A well shaped
account of another Goethe song, Schäfers
Klagelied offered typically Schubertian smiling through tears, as well as
the vivid drama of actual (and metaphorical?) storm. One began to appreciate
the sadness that had underlay even the earliest songs in the programme, in part
retrospectively.
It may sound obvious, but to
perform the Romanze from Rosauunde as, well, a romance, offered
the key to its success, especially as relief after a darkly romantic indictment
of ‘love’ in Die Liebe hat gelogen. Again,
the clue proved to be in the title for Wer
sich der Einsamkeit ergibt, Schubert extending, as perhaps only music can,
Goethe’s conception of loneliness. Particularity of mood characterised both of
the following Goethe songs too; so did able voice-leading: in piano, tenor, and
both. The quiet dignity of Schwanengesang
– the 1822 song, not the song-cycle! – and its unforced Unheimlichkeit brought genuine, not contrived silence at the close.
Which returns us to sincerity: an ideal for us as listeners too?
