Royal Albert Hall
Bridge – Isabella
Birtwistle – Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (United Kingdom premiere)
Holst – The Planets
Christian Teztlaff (violin)
Holst Singers
BBC Symphony Orchestra
David Robertson (conductor)
More odd programming at the Proms. It is not irrelevant to see Birtwistle in an English context, there being a strong vein of melancholy in his music to trace back at least as far as Dowland; it was nevertheless unclear that Frank Bridge and Gustav Holst were best choices as supporting composers for the British premiere of the Concerto for Violin and Orchestra. (The first performance took place in Boston earlier this year.) This is the first piece Birtwistle has explicitly named a concerto, despite forerunners in pieces such as Antiphonies for piano and orchestra. What I shall say is based upon but a single hearing, with all the caveats that must imply, but I was left in no doubt that we heard a masterpiece. The increasing importance of strings to Birtwistle’s tonal palette, as remarked upon in Jonathan Cross’s model programme note, was in evidence from the outset. Cross notes the precedent of Mendelssohn, of whose concerto Birtwistle is fond, in particular its ‘sparkle’ and the way in which the soloist throws the listener straight into the work. I also heard surprisingly strong echoes of Berg, both intervallic and harmonic, and not just at the opening. There also seemed to be reminiscences, whether conscious or otherwise, of Gawain, not least in terms of Birtwistle’s very personal use of metallic percussion. The violin part was throughout performed with outstanding musicality and virtuosity by Christian Tetzlaff; it is in many respects soaringly lyrical, though doubtless it will not have seemed so to tone-deaf reactionaries. For a composer who has long been associated with his native woodwind, it was delightful to realise how gratefully written for the instrument the piece is. Solos spark off orchestral strings and indeed the rest of the orchestra; there is, needless to say, some haunting woodwind writing too. There is an especially exquisite – yes, Birtwistle can be exquisite – not-quite-duet between violin and bassoon, the latter more shadow (Boulezian ombre, albeit in a non-electronic context?) than partner. Rhythm is a predictably strong driving force, but we also hear ravishing oases of reflection: bizarre though this may sound, I was put in mind of the precedent of Szymanowski. At other times, however, the listener is treated to a post-Messiaen world of wind and percussive sonorities, which never, however, sound as harsh as much of the composer’s earlier writing. Above all, as one would expect from the greatest English musical dramatist since Purcell, there is a true sense of the violinist as Faustian protagonist, at least as much so as, arguably still more so than, the soloist in Henze’s Third Violin Concerto (which presents three portraits from Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus). A subsiding, moving, tuba line leads us to the final solo pizzicato, completing a tapestry of unusually gorgeous quality. Teztlaff and David Robertson, conducting the BBC Symphony Orchestra on excellent form, presented the work as the repertory piece it must become.
It is difficult to begrudge an occasional performance of Bridge’s symphonic poem, Isabella, not least since it was premiered by Sir Henry Wood at the Proms in 1907 and has not been heard in these concerts since. On the other hand, I cannot say that I am surprised by its absence. A quiet opening for violas and kettledrums sounds promising, if a little blatantly modelled upon Liszt’s Von der Wiege bis zum Grabe, the final symphonic poem written by the form’s inventor. Influences thereafter come thick and fast: Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Strauss, Debussy. Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet is clearly a model for much of the brass writing, but Bridge has none of the Russian composer’s melodic genius. The form appears to follow quite closely the example of Keats’s poem, Isabella; or, The Pot of Basil. I wished that it had done so rather more quickly.
The Planets received a good performance: at its best the BBC SO sounded very good indeed, though there were moments when it sounded a little lacklustre, if never so much as it tends to under its principal conductor. ‘Mars’, surely the finest movement in the score, was also the finest in performance: seething in its menace, mechanical in its barbarism, a true premonition of war so swiftly to come. The Royal Albert Hall organ, here and elsewhere, made a fine impact. Alas, elements in the audience elected to applaud after this and every other movement – save, of course, ‘Uranus’, though I am not sure that I should have put it past them then too. ‘Venus’ and ‘Mercury’ benefited from a nicely French sound, perhaps more Ravel than Debussy, and an excellent solo from leader, Andrew Haveron; both movements do, though, tend to overstay their welcome. We heard a bright and breezy ‘Jupiter’, bringing jollity as required; if parts of the score sounded a little like a concerto for orchestra, then that is really Holst’s doing. The ‘big tune’ hit home, sounding noble rather than mawkish. Robertson handled the onward tread of ‘Saturn’ well, also pointing up intriguing consonances with Parsifal. ‘Uranus’ mixed jovial magician with sorcerer’s apprentice to good effect. Perhaps, however, after ‘Mars’, the highlight was the expert, imperceptible way in which the off-stage female voices of the Holst Singers stole into the hall: that was really rather beautiful.
Showing posts with label Frank Bridge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Frank Bridge. Show all posts
Wednesday, 7 September 2011
Thursday, 1 May 2008
Sir Thomas Allen, vocal recital, 29 April 2008
Friends of Peterhouse Theatre, Peterhouse, Cambridge
Schumann – Dichterliebe, Op.48
Butterworth – selection from A Shropshire lad
Copland – Long time ago
Copland – At the river
Bernstein – Greeting
Warlock – Ha’nacker Mill
Warlock – My own country
Warlock – Sleep
Thomas Dunhill – The cloths of heaven
Frank Bridge – The Devon maid
Sir Thomas Allen (baritone)
Simon Over (piano)
This was a concert of two halves, certainly not in terms of quality of performance but rather of content. In the second half, Sir Thomas Allen and Simon Over performed a varied selection of songs in English, from twentieth-century English and American composers. If Leonard Bernstein’s uncharacteristically subdued Greeting failed to make any particular impression, and Frank Bridge’s The Devon Maid impressed more on account of Keats’s verse than Bridge’s setting, then this was in no sense the fault of the performers, who lavished as much care and attention upon songs such as these as they had on Schumann during the first half. The two Copland songs exhibited an easy going, almost folksy charm in Allen’s performance, to which he added if not quite an American drawl, then at least something unforcedly mid-Atlantic. Peter Warlock’s settings, to which Allen imparted a diverting spoken introduction, exhibited a fine marriage of words and music, both in terms of the works themselves and the performances. Over’s contribution was crucial not only to the general ‘atmosphere’ of the songs, but also to the sense of harmonic and rhythmic momentum, which without exception sounded in perfect tandem with the vocal line.
Perhaps the highlight of the first half came at its opening with six of George Butterworth’s settings from A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad. The group – Loveliest of trees, When I was one-and-twenty, Look not in my eyes, Think no more, lad, The lads in their hundreds, and Is my team ploughing? – were nicely contrasted. Whilst there was an undoubted overarching melancholy to poetry, music, and performance, this did not preclude a sprightlier response where called for. The performances were thoroughly idiomatic, sounding as if presentations of the songs themselves rather than ‘interpretations’ thereof. I might hazard a couple of minor cavils, in that Allen’s intonation very occasionally did not initially hit the spot, although it was without exception swiftly corrected, and the head voice was not always quite so secure as the fine chest register. But if anything, these minor attributes added to the sense of slightly flawed humanity; they were in no sense distracting.
The first half was devoted entirely, and rightly so, to Schumann’s Dichterliebe. I left this until last, since it is of course a masterpiece of the highest order, and I suspect that it is this performance that I shall longest remember. What I said concerning intonation was occasionally the case here, but again the quibble is somewhat beside the point. What mattered was a thoughtful and profoundly moving response to the verbal and musical text. Indeed, Allen presented some of the best diction, in both German and English, I have heard in a recital or indeed anywhere else. There was not a single word for which I had to strain to hear. This was doubtless helped by the acoustic of the intimate Friends of Peterhouse Theatre, but on past experience, this nevertheless remains far from a given. In any case, Heine’s verse is so perfect that one needs to hear every word, and for once one did.
The audience’s attention seemed – and mine certainly was – captured from the vernal opening of Im wunderschönen Monat Mai. Word-painting, in both the vocal and piano parts, was beautifully expressed throughout, without descending into the didactic. The word zerrissen (‘torn’) in Und wüßten’s die Blumen, die kleinen was almost onomatopoeic, yet the vocal line remained perfectly intact. Schubert’s ghost will always haunt subsequent Lieder, but I felt him notably present on a number of apt occasions. Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne brought an especially finely-detailed piano response, reminiscent of the past joys of Winterreise, whilst the following Wenn ich in deine Augen seh was rounded off with a touchingly Schubertian postlude. Likewise the signs of hope, almost instantly to be dashed, in Ich will meine Seele tauchen, which is not of course in any sense to deny Schumann’s originality. An authentic Heine irony was heard in the real anger of Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen, as the poet hears the wedding dance of his beloved. Hör’ ich das Liedchen klingen painted a true landscape of the heart, from the piano’s frozen opening onwards. And when, in Allnächtlich im Traume, we heard, ‘Du sagst mir heimlich ein leises Wort’, we were indeed told a hushed word in secret. The nobility of the penultimate Aus alten Märchen winkt es prepared the way for the devastating Die alten, bösen Lieder. No one could have missed the bitterness of the final lines, in which the poet tells us that the coffin must be so large and heavy since he will also bury his love and his suffering. And the piano epilogue took me back to the parallel passage of beauty through tears in the Op.18 Arabeske, reminding us that Schumann remained above all a poet of his own instrument.
Schumann – Dichterliebe, Op.48
Butterworth – selection from A Shropshire lad
Copland – Long time ago
Copland – At the river
Bernstein – Greeting
Warlock – Ha’nacker Mill
Warlock – My own country
Warlock – Sleep
Thomas Dunhill – The cloths of heaven
Frank Bridge – The Devon maid
Sir Thomas Allen (baritone)
Simon Over (piano)
This was a concert of two halves, certainly not in terms of quality of performance but rather of content. In the second half, Sir Thomas Allen and Simon Over performed a varied selection of songs in English, from twentieth-century English and American composers. If Leonard Bernstein’s uncharacteristically subdued Greeting failed to make any particular impression, and Frank Bridge’s The Devon Maid impressed more on account of Keats’s verse than Bridge’s setting, then this was in no sense the fault of the performers, who lavished as much care and attention upon songs such as these as they had on Schumann during the first half. The two Copland songs exhibited an easy going, almost folksy charm in Allen’s performance, to which he added if not quite an American drawl, then at least something unforcedly mid-Atlantic. Peter Warlock’s settings, to which Allen imparted a diverting spoken introduction, exhibited a fine marriage of words and music, both in terms of the works themselves and the performances. Over’s contribution was crucial not only to the general ‘atmosphere’ of the songs, but also to the sense of harmonic and rhythmic momentum, which without exception sounded in perfect tandem with the vocal line.
Perhaps the highlight of the first half came at its opening with six of George Butterworth’s settings from A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad. The group – Loveliest of trees, When I was one-and-twenty, Look not in my eyes, Think no more, lad, The lads in their hundreds, and Is my team ploughing? – were nicely contrasted. Whilst there was an undoubted overarching melancholy to poetry, music, and performance, this did not preclude a sprightlier response where called for. The performances were thoroughly idiomatic, sounding as if presentations of the songs themselves rather than ‘interpretations’ thereof. I might hazard a couple of minor cavils, in that Allen’s intonation very occasionally did not initially hit the spot, although it was without exception swiftly corrected, and the head voice was not always quite so secure as the fine chest register. But if anything, these minor attributes added to the sense of slightly flawed humanity; they were in no sense distracting.
The first half was devoted entirely, and rightly so, to Schumann’s Dichterliebe. I left this until last, since it is of course a masterpiece of the highest order, and I suspect that it is this performance that I shall longest remember. What I said concerning intonation was occasionally the case here, but again the quibble is somewhat beside the point. What mattered was a thoughtful and profoundly moving response to the verbal and musical text. Indeed, Allen presented some of the best diction, in both German and English, I have heard in a recital or indeed anywhere else. There was not a single word for which I had to strain to hear. This was doubtless helped by the acoustic of the intimate Friends of Peterhouse Theatre, but on past experience, this nevertheless remains far from a given. In any case, Heine’s verse is so perfect that one needs to hear every word, and for once one did.
The audience’s attention seemed – and mine certainly was – captured from the vernal opening of Im wunderschönen Monat Mai. Word-painting, in both the vocal and piano parts, was beautifully expressed throughout, without descending into the didactic. The word zerrissen (‘torn’) in Und wüßten’s die Blumen, die kleinen was almost onomatopoeic, yet the vocal line remained perfectly intact. Schubert’s ghost will always haunt subsequent Lieder, but I felt him notably present on a number of apt occasions. Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne brought an especially finely-detailed piano response, reminiscent of the past joys of Winterreise, whilst the following Wenn ich in deine Augen seh was rounded off with a touchingly Schubertian postlude. Likewise the signs of hope, almost instantly to be dashed, in Ich will meine Seele tauchen, which is not of course in any sense to deny Schumann’s originality. An authentic Heine irony was heard in the real anger of Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen, as the poet hears the wedding dance of his beloved. Hör’ ich das Liedchen klingen painted a true landscape of the heart, from the piano’s frozen opening onwards. And when, in Allnächtlich im Traume, we heard, ‘Du sagst mir heimlich ein leises Wort’, we were indeed told a hushed word in secret. The nobility of the penultimate Aus alten Märchen winkt es prepared the way for the devastating Die alten, bösen Lieder. No one could have missed the bitterness of the final lines, in which the poet tells us that the coffin must be so large and heavy since he will also bury his love and his suffering. And the piano epilogue took me back to the parallel passage of beauty through tears in the Op.18 Arabeske, reminding us that Schumann remained above all a poet of his own instrument.
Monday, 7 January 2008
Strauss (and other) Lieder, Wigmore Hall, 6 January 2007
Wigmore Hall
Strauss: Ständchen; Seitdem dein Aug’; Nur mut!; Das Geheimnis; Sehnsucht; Liebeshymnus; O süsser Mai; Himmelsboten
Ivor Gurney: On Wenlock Edge; Ha’nacker Mill; The Salley Gardens; Snow; Hawk and Buckle
Strauss: Freundliche Vision; Ich schwebe; Kling!
Strauss: Amor; Einkehr; Mit deinen blauen Augen; Ein Obdach gegen Sturm; Rote Rosen; Die erwachter Rose; Die heiligen drei Könige
Frank Bridge: Adoration; Go not, happy day; Berceuse; Come to me in my dreams; O that it were so!
Strauss: Mein Herz ist stumm; Wozu noch, Mädchen; Wie sollten wir geheim sie halten
Rebecca Bottone (soprano)
Nathan Vale (tenor)
Paul Plummer (piano)
This was the last of three Wigmore Hall concerts devoted to the Lieder of Richard Strauss. Common to all was the pianist and deviser of the programmes, Paul Plummer. Each programme had included songs by other composers: from France in the first, Russia in the second, and England in the third. I assume that these works were chosen with the evening’s singers in mind, since there did not seem to be an obvious connection between Ivor Gurney and Frank Bridge on the one hand, and Strauss on the other. No matter: if there were no especial connection, nor did the combination jar unduly, and the English songs certainly showed off the vocal soloists to advantage.
Paul Plummer’s contribution as pianist merits enthusiastic praise. Strauss’s piano parts can be treacherous indeed, though one would hardly have known it, such was Plummer’s finely-judged virtuosity: never drawing attention to itself for attention’s sake, but never unduly reticent either. The young singers could hardly have wished for a better guide. The pearly tones required in the opening Ständchen set a standard which Plummer continued to meet. The piano bells in Liebeshymnus were set in beautiful counterpoint with the underlying chords; this is not at all easy to accomplish. Sehnsucht’s almost Lisztian interlude between the third and fourth stanza resolved perfectly into the Tristan-esque harmony that opens the fourth. Strauss’s musical antecedents were pointed up without scoring points; the composer was situated in a tradition that goes beyond what is conventionally considered to be at the heart of Lieder-writing. I greatly appreciated this, since there can occasionally be a tendency from Lieder enthusiasts to cordon off their province from other musical realms, not least from that of opera. Song and opera are different of course, rather as chamber and orchestral music are different, but there is a great deal of interplay, and a songwriter such as Strauss can have more in common with Wagner than might necessarily be the case with another songwriter. And Plummer passed an especially stern test when it came to that wonderful Heine setting, Die heiligen drei Könige. The piano part is actually a transcription, the orchestral song being the original. When I heard Roger Vignoles at Edinburgh in August, even he seemed unable to rid one of the impression of loss. With Plummer, the music was taken more soberly, less overtly pictorially: one would never have guessed its orchestral origin. The horns of Mein Herz ist stumm’s ‘Hörnerklang’ were beautifully characterised, again without being overdone and making one wish there were a real orchestra present.
Rebecca Bottone’s contribution was more problematical. One does not have to be Jessye Norman to sing Strauss – although it certainly helps. However, I am not at all convinced that Bottone’s voice was appropriate. It reminded me immediately of Reri Grist; my next thought was that this sounded very much the sort of chirpy, rather shrill voice conductors seem fond of allotting to roles such as Mozart’s Blonde. (I am not quite sure why, but that is a different matter.) When I consulted Bottone’s biography, sure and enough Blonde was given pride of place. The voice, in any case, lacked richness of tone and adequate differentiation of colours. Her bearing, visual as well as vocal, could be excessively winsome, especially in Amor, Strauss’s Cupid song. That said, she coped very well in that setting with Strauss’ cruel demands in terms of coloratura. There were some distinctly odd German vowel sounds, and she rarely sounded as if she were singing from ‘within’ the language. Tuning, moreover, was not always as precise as it might have been. On the other hand, Bottone sounded far more at home with the Bridge settings, both vocally and linguistically. Rather surprisingly, her voice appeared to acquire greater colour than it had in Strauss. There was a lovely ending to the Tennyson setting, Go not, happy day: spot on in intonation and with an apt smile in the voice to complement ‘Roses are her cheeks,/And a rose her mouth.’ If some of Bridge’s music, especially the piano part, reminded one a little too much of the salon, or the Palm Court, that is hardly the singer’s fault. Following the Bridge settings, her remaining Strauss song, Wie sollten wir geheim sie halten, appeared to benefit. There was more colour, although it still did not really seem her thing.
Nathan Vale was a considerable improvement. I am not entirely sure that his was the most suitable voice for Strauss either, but there was certainly less of a mismatch. His voice is rather an ‘English’ tenor, albeit without the mannerisms that so often infect that vocal type. There were times when Strauss’s writing appeared to sit uncomfortably high, but then Strauss’s tenor writing is notorious, and the odd faltering aside, Vale put up a good fight. He was good at posing questions, for instance ‘Du fragst mich, Mädchen, was flüsternd der West/Vertraue den Blütenglocken?’ (Das Geheimnis). He imparted an aptly Schubertian chill to the openings of Sehnsucht and Mein Herz ist stumm. When the opening line of the latter song return at the end, there was truly something of the sepulchre or Winterreise to the revisiting. Die erwachter Rose brought a real sense of erwachen (awakening) as Friedrich von Sallet’s verse told of the nightingale’s sweet song and the bud blossoming into a rose. At times, I thought Vale could have sung out more freely. When he did, as in Die heiligen drei Könige, the results impressed. However, if the disparity were less great, he too sounded more at home in the English settings, in his case those by Gurney. Indeed, here he sang as if to the manor born. (It transpires that he and Plummer have recently recorded a disc of English song.) The poignancy of fading away in Edward Thomas setting, Snow, was rather special. And there was plenty of vigour to Robert Graves’s Hawk and Buckle. Indeed, this combination of youthful vigour and imploring, though never mawkish vulnerability seemed just right for the music of one whose career was so cruelly cut short by the First World War.
So if not always an ideal appreciation of Strauss, there was much to enjoy here. Many of these songs are not often encountered, which gave the recital extra value. Vale’s voice is still very young, and will doubtless open out more, but he was far from unequal to many of Strauss’s demands. Plummer was excellent, though I am not convinced that his programming matches his pianism. The encores, a group of five ‘very small’ (mercifully) songs by Sterndale Bennett were ‘humorous’ though not – at least to this listener – amusing. They seemed an odd conclusion to this recital, but would surely have seemed odder still had one attended the series of three Strauss recitals.
Strauss: Ständchen; Seitdem dein Aug’; Nur mut!; Das Geheimnis; Sehnsucht; Liebeshymnus; O süsser Mai; Himmelsboten
Ivor Gurney: On Wenlock Edge; Ha’nacker Mill; The Salley Gardens; Snow; Hawk and Buckle
Strauss: Freundliche Vision; Ich schwebe; Kling!
Strauss: Amor; Einkehr; Mit deinen blauen Augen; Ein Obdach gegen Sturm; Rote Rosen; Die erwachter Rose; Die heiligen drei Könige
Frank Bridge: Adoration; Go not, happy day; Berceuse; Come to me in my dreams; O that it were so!
Strauss: Mein Herz ist stumm; Wozu noch, Mädchen; Wie sollten wir geheim sie halten
Rebecca Bottone (soprano)
Nathan Vale (tenor)
Paul Plummer (piano)
This was the last of three Wigmore Hall concerts devoted to the Lieder of Richard Strauss. Common to all was the pianist and deviser of the programmes, Paul Plummer. Each programme had included songs by other composers: from France in the first, Russia in the second, and England in the third. I assume that these works were chosen with the evening’s singers in mind, since there did not seem to be an obvious connection between Ivor Gurney and Frank Bridge on the one hand, and Strauss on the other. No matter: if there were no especial connection, nor did the combination jar unduly, and the English songs certainly showed off the vocal soloists to advantage.
Paul Plummer’s contribution as pianist merits enthusiastic praise. Strauss’s piano parts can be treacherous indeed, though one would hardly have known it, such was Plummer’s finely-judged virtuosity: never drawing attention to itself for attention’s sake, but never unduly reticent either. The young singers could hardly have wished for a better guide. The pearly tones required in the opening Ständchen set a standard which Plummer continued to meet. The piano bells in Liebeshymnus were set in beautiful counterpoint with the underlying chords; this is not at all easy to accomplish. Sehnsucht’s almost Lisztian interlude between the third and fourth stanza resolved perfectly into the Tristan-esque harmony that opens the fourth. Strauss’s musical antecedents were pointed up without scoring points; the composer was situated in a tradition that goes beyond what is conventionally considered to be at the heart of Lieder-writing. I greatly appreciated this, since there can occasionally be a tendency from Lieder enthusiasts to cordon off their province from other musical realms, not least from that of opera. Song and opera are different of course, rather as chamber and orchestral music are different, but there is a great deal of interplay, and a songwriter such as Strauss can have more in common with Wagner than might necessarily be the case with another songwriter. And Plummer passed an especially stern test when it came to that wonderful Heine setting, Die heiligen drei Könige. The piano part is actually a transcription, the orchestral song being the original. When I heard Roger Vignoles at Edinburgh in August, even he seemed unable to rid one of the impression of loss. With Plummer, the music was taken more soberly, less overtly pictorially: one would never have guessed its orchestral origin. The horns of Mein Herz ist stumm’s ‘Hörnerklang’ were beautifully characterised, again without being overdone and making one wish there were a real orchestra present.
Rebecca Bottone’s contribution was more problematical. One does not have to be Jessye Norman to sing Strauss – although it certainly helps. However, I am not at all convinced that Bottone’s voice was appropriate. It reminded me immediately of Reri Grist; my next thought was that this sounded very much the sort of chirpy, rather shrill voice conductors seem fond of allotting to roles such as Mozart’s Blonde. (I am not quite sure why, but that is a different matter.) When I consulted Bottone’s biography, sure and enough Blonde was given pride of place. The voice, in any case, lacked richness of tone and adequate differentiation of colours. Her bearing, visual as well as vocal, could be excessively winsome, especially in Amor, Strauss’s Cupid song. That said, she coped very well in that setting with Strauss’ cruel demands in terms of coloratura. There were some distinctly odd German vowel sounds, and she rarely sounded as if she were singing from ‘within’ the language. Tuning, moreover, was not always as precise as it might have been. On the other hand, Bottone sounded far more at home with the Bridge settings, both vocally and linguistically. Rather surprisingly, her voice appeared to acquire greater colour than it had in Strauss. There was a lovely ending to the Tennyson setting, Go not, happy day: spot on in intonation and with an apt smile in the voice to complement ‘Roses are her cheeks,/And a rose her mouth.’ If some of Bridge’s music, especially the piano part, reminded one a little too much of the salon, or the Palm Court, that is hardly the singer’s fault. Following the Bridge settings, her remaining Strauss song, Wie sollten wir geheim sie halten, appeared to benefit. There was more colour, although it still did not really seem her thing.
Nathan Vale was a considerable improvement. I am not entirely sure that his was the most suitable voice for Strauss either, but there was certainly less of a mismatch. His voice is rather an ‘English’ tenor, albeit without the mannerisms that so often infect that vocal type. There were times when Strauss’s writing appeared to sit uncomfortably high, but then Strauss’s tenor writing is notorious, and the odd faltering aside, Vale put up a good fight. He was good at posing questions, for instance ‘Du fragst mich, Mädchen, was flüsternd der West/Vertraue den Blütenglocken?’ (Das Geheimnis). He imparted an aptly Schubertian chill to the openings of Sehnsucht and Mein Herz ist stumm. When the opening line of the latter song return at the end, there was truly something of the sepulchre or Winterreise to the revisiting. Die erwachter Rose brought a real sense of erwachen (awakening) as Friedrich von Sallet’s verse told of the nightingale’s sweet song and the bud blossoming into a rose. At times, I thought Vale could have sung out more freely. When he did, as in Die heiligen drei Könige, the results impressed. However, if the disparity were less great, he too sounded more at home in the English settings, in his case those by Gurney. Indeed, here he sang as if to the manor born. (It transpires that he and Plummer have recently recorded a disc of English song.) The poignancy of fading away in Edward Thomas setting, Snow, was rather special. And there was plenty of vigour to Robert Graves’s Hawk and Buckle. Indeed, this combination of youthful vigour and imploring, though never mawkish vulnerability seemed just right for the music of one whose career was so cruelly cut short by the First World War.
So if not always an ideal appreciation of Strauss, there was much to enjoy here. Many of these songs are not often encountered, which gave the recital extra value. Vale’s voice is still very young, and will doubtless open out more, but he was far from unequal to many of Strauss’s demands. Plummer was excellent, though I am not convinced that his programming matches his pianism. The encores, a group of five ‘very small’ (mercifully) songs by Sterndale Bennett were ‘humorous’ though not – at least to this listener – amusing. They seemed an odd conclusion to this recital, but would surely have seemed odder still had one attended the series of three Strauss recitals.
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