Damrau/Kaufmann/Deutsch - Schumann and Brahms, 29 March 2022

Barbican Hall

Schumann: ‘Widmung’, op.25 no.1; ‘Jemand’, op.25 no.4; ‘Geständnis’, op.74 no.7; ‘Resignation’, op.83 no.1; ‘Liebeslied’, op.51 no.5; ‘Stille Tränen’, op.35 no.10
Brahms: ‘Verzagen’, op.72 no.4; ‘Waldeseinsamkeit’, op.85 no.6; ‘Nachtigall’, op.97 no.1; ‘Ach, wende diesen Blick’, op.57 no.4; ‘Es träumte mir’, op.57 no.3; ‘Meerfahrt’, op.96 no.4; ‘Anklänge’, op.7 no.3
Schumann: ‘In der Nacht’, op.74 no.4; ‘Tragödie’, op.64 no.3; ‘An den Abendstern’, op.103 no.4
Brahms: ‘Vergebliches Ständchen’, op.84 no.4; ‘Serenade’, op.70 no.3; ‘Therese’, op.86 no.1; ‘O komme, holde Sommernacht’, op.58 no.4; ‘Geheimnis’, op.71 no.3; ‘Wir wandelten’, op.86 no.2
Schumann: ‘Er und sie’, op.78 no.2; ‘Mein schooner Stern’, op.101 no.4; ‘Lied der Suleika’, op.25 no.9; ‘Ihre Stimme’, op.96 no.3; ‘Liebster, deine Worte’, op.101 no.2; ‘Lehn’ deine Wang an meine Wang’, op.142 no.2; ‘Verratene Liebe’, op.40 no.5
Brahms: ‘Weg der Liebe’, op.20 no.2; ‘An die Tauben’, op.63 no.4; ‘Die Liebende schreibt’, op.47 no.5; ‘Sehnsucht’, op.14 no.8; ‘Meine Liebe ist grün’, op.63 no.5; ‘Versunken’, op.86 no.5; ‘Von ewiger Liebe’, op.43 no.1; ‘Boten der Liebe’, op.61 no.4

Jonas Kaufmann (tenor)

Diana Damrau (soprano)

Helmut Deutsch (piano)

Images: Mark Allan/Barbican

Here was a rich—and richly varied—programme of songs and duets by Schumann and Brahms, which gained almost as much strength from intelligent programming, dividing the performances into two halves, and three single-composer groups within each half, as through the musical contributions of Diana Damrau, Jonas Kaufmann, and Helmut Deutsch. Broadly speaking, the second half was lighter than the first, though each traced its own dramatic path, drawing on the strengths of both singers as actors as well as singers. That is something frowned upon by the more severe of Lieder purists—do they really think opera and song should be separated by a chasm?—but which lent the evening its own particular, enchanting character.

The opening few Schumann songs set the scene for what was to come, Kaufmann immediately ardent and imploring in ‘Widmung’, Damrau’s ‘Jemund’ a finely judged response, characterful without tweeness, Kaufmann’s ‘Geständnis’ in turn following on, and so on. There was much, yet never too much, stage interaction, and Deutsch subtly had Schumann’s harmonies tell tales similar yet never identical to those told with words. I loved the unexaggerated, heartfelt dilemma Damrau outlined in ‘Liebeslied’, bringing us to Kaufmann’s conclusion to this group, a ‘Stille Tränen’, in which the world’s heart skipped a beat or two. Almost an aria, yet never leaving the realm of song, the performance benefited from Deutsch’s grand, almost Lisztian manner. Nothing was taken for granted, each song and its position within the whole thought out.

Turning to Brahms, the tumult of ‘Verzagen’, vividly portrayed by Damrau and Deutsch, set the scene for keen storytelling (a haunted Kaufmann ‘In Waldeseinsamkeit’), ardent nostalgia with a refreshing bite (Damrau’s ‘Nachtigall’) and much more. True, there was strain on Kaufmann’s voice at times, such as would not once have been the case. If that lessened the impact of his performances to some, it is a pity, but surely the way he built a song such as ‘Meerfahrt’ was ample compensation; likewise, the particular qualities of a voice that seems to have headed into falsetto, yet which is revealed to be simply part of a spectrum of many colours, leading down to that celebrated, baritonal base. There was a special magic when the two voices finally came together in Schumann’s ‘In der Nacht’, itself helping prepare for the exchanges of ‘Tragödie’: first Kaufmann’s vulnerable masculinity, then Damrau’s killing our hopes and expectations, and then both together in the final of its three songs, laced with a generous helping of Romantic irony. ‘An den Abendstern’ functioned as beautiful pendant and harbinger of new paths.

 

Our artists set a different initial tone for the second half: lighter, yet with fine distinctions of colour, in a humorous account of ‘Vergebliches Ständchen’. If the following Kaufmann ‘Serenade’ were darker, one nonetheless heard that in new light. There was altogether a post-Mozartian sensibility to many of these songs, doubtless drawing on long stage as well as hall experience and all the stronger for that. The romantic—and Romantic—intertwining of lines in Schumann’s ‘Er und sie’, followed by Kaufmann’s incorrigibly seductive ‘Mein schooner Stern’ and Damrau’s lightly worn longing in the Goethe setting ‘Lied der Suleika’—what verse!—led us to the end of that set and beyond, to the first of the next.

There, in Brahms’s ‘Weg der Liebe’, we heard the truest of duets, a fine sense of fulfilment as voices came together once more, with a hint or two, never overwhelming, of that operatic experience too. Damrau’s soaring, exultant ‘Meine Liebe ist grün’, set against typically Brahmsian shadows in the piano, set up expectations for the next-but-one ‘Von ewiger Liebe’. Kaufmann there took the audience in the palm of his hand, his singing as beautiful as anything from fifteen years ago, Damrau every inch his equal, both voices and piano contributing to a deeply cumulative experience. ‘Die Boten der Liebe’ made for a splendid foil, like a buffa duet in previously mentioned post-Mozart spirit. Schumann’s ‘Unterm Fenster’ came as well-chosen encore.

Salzburg Festival (8) – Peter/Deutsch: Schubert and Strauss, 20 August 2019

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum

Schubert: Ganymed, D 544; Sehnsucht, D 123; Rastlose Liebe, D 138; Meeres Stille, D 216; Wandres Nachtlied II, D 768; Der Fischer, D 225; Der König in Thule, D 367; Erlkönig, D 328; Erster Verlust, D 226; Versunken, D 715; Geheimes, D 719; An die Entfernte, D 765; Willkommen und Abschied, D 767

Strauss: Heimliche Aufforderung, op.27 no.3; Wozu noch, Mädchen, op.19 no.1; Breit’über mein Haupt, op.19 no.2; Traum durch die Dämmerung, op.29 no.1; Ich liebe dich, op.37 no.2; Mädchenblumen, op.22; Ständchen, op.17 no.2; Liebeshymnus, op.32 no.3; Ich trage meine Minne, op.32 no.1; Freundliche Vision, op.48 no.1; Wie sollten wir geheim sie halten, op.19 no.4

Mauro Peter (tenor)

Helmut Deutsch (piano)

Image: Salzburger Festspiele / Marco Borrelli

To the Mozarteum for a lovely programme of nineteenth-century song: Schubert and Strauss from Mauro Peter and Helmut Deutsch. If the latter took a little while to come into his own, more consistently at home in Strauss than in Schubert, that should not be exaggerated – and a couple of Schubert encores were just as impressive as two Strauss additions. Peter shone throughout, fully justifying and furthering his already high reputation as a thoughtful, musical, and highly likeable musical performer.

The (programmed) Schubert songs were all Goethe settings. Ganymed proved perfect as an opener: expectant as its call of ‘Frühling, Geliebter!’ It minor-mode shades were just as telling, setting the scene for climax and subsidence.  Sehnsucht offered both emotional turn and progression: fine programming, fully realised in Peter’s performance. Darker colouring, for instance, on ‘finster and finstrer’ (‘dark and darker’) was subtle yet unmistakeable. One might almost have translated the text from that alone. Deutsch’s piano ripples in ‘Meeres Stille’ were just the thing, finely complemented by a rapt, deep, Romantic miniature in the second Wandrers Nachtlied. Schubert as post-Mozartian was captured in fine balance by both artists in Der Fischer, an interesting, convincing prelude to the captivating storytelling of Der König in Thule and, of course, a highly dramatic account of Erlkönig. The sadness of Erster Verlust, profound sensitivity of An die Entfernte, and final synthetic twists of Willkommen und Abschied were further highlights to this first half.

Heimliche Aufforderung provided an exultant opening to the Strauss half: a different variety of expectancy that yet balanced the first. The opera house was closer, yes, but still distant. Never did Peter give the impression he would rather be onstage, though the appetite was whetted for Strauss roles that may well lie in the future. ‘O komm, du wunderbare, ersehnte Nacht!’ Indeed. Intelligent, meaningful programming again offered a sound foundation for excellent performances, Wozu noch, Mädchen leading naturally – whatever the artifice in reality – to Breit’ über mein Haupt, which in turn seemed answered by Traum durch die Dämmerung, and so on. Ich liebe dich strongly suggested Ariadne’s Bacchus: a fine, tantalising close to the first group. The four Mädchenblumen received performances as loving as they were ardent: not a bad way at all to approach Strauss. Peter’s command of detail, be it verbal or musical, was as keen as ever, indeed exemplary. ‘Was je die Romantik von Elfen geträumt hat.’ A riveting Ständchen, ecstatic yet far from exaggerated Liebeshymnus, and confiding Freundliche Vision all made their mark in a progression to the final, impetuous Wie sollten wir geheim sie halten: spring, then transformed by what we had heard and felt, Schubert’s Ganymed recalled, enriched, yet not quite revisited. Morgen would, inevitably, be the final close – and yes, a tear came to my eye even before the voice had entered.

Damrau/Kaufmann/Deutsch - Wolf, 16 February 2018

Barbican Hall



Images: Mark Allan/Barbican



Italienisches Liederbuch

Diana Damrau (soprano)

Jonas Kaufmann (tenor)

Helmut Deutsch (piano)

Nationality is a complicated thing at the best of times. (At the worst of times: well, none of us needs reminding about that.) What, if anything, might it mean for Hugo Wolf’s Italian Songbook? Almost whatever you want it to mean, or not to mean. Wolf, one might say, was an Austrian composer, which is or at least was certainly to say also a German composer; yet he was born in Windischgrätz, now Slovenj Gradec. Both names for what was long a Styrian town refer to the Slovene or Wendish Graz, to distinguish it from the larger Graz. And so on, and so forth. Mitteleuropaïsch is more than a collection of disparate identities; it is an identity in itself. It certainly was in the Austrian Empire in which Wolf was born, and it certainly was in the Dual Monarchy in which he grew up. Moreover, northern Italy had long been part, to varying extents, and depending on who was, of that identity too. So too, however, had a romanticised German idea of ‘Italy’, of the Mediterranean, of the South. Look to Goethe and Liszt, for instance – or to Paul Heyse’s selection and translations of songs, as set by Wolf (not greatly, or indeed at all, to Heyse’s pleasure).

 

What one can say is that this idealised ‘Italy’, Tuscan rispetti and Venetian vilote could only have come from without the Italian lands. If ‘German’ constitutes at least as multifarious a multitude of sins as ‘Italian’, these songs remain very much a German evocation of lightness, of sunlight, of serenades, of a ‘love’ that is rarely, if ever that of German Romanticism, although it may well be viewed through that prism. All three performers at this Barbican recital understood that, I think: both intuitively and intellectually. At any rate, the tricky balance between Italian ‘light’, in more than one sense, and German ‘prism’ seemed almost effortlessly communicated – however much art had been required to convey such an impression.

 

The songbook is not a song-cycle, so to speak of ‘reordering’ is perhaps slightly misleading. At any rate, the ordering selected made good sense, grouping the book’s forty-six little songs into four groups, which, if not exactly narratives of their own, made sense as scenes or, if you will, scenas. One made connections as and when one wished; nothing was forced, much as in the music and the performances themselves. Diana Damrau and Jonas Kaufmann opted, boldly yet not too boldly, for a staginess alive to the humour, or at least to the potential for humour without sending anything up or otherwise trying to turn the songs into something they are not. Helmut Deutsch, in general the straight man, perhaps had the ultimate moment of humour, in his piano evocation of a hapless violinist (‘Wie lange schon war immer mien Verlangen), Damrau having ambiguously prepared the way, at least in retrospect, with a lightly wienerisch account. Deutsch provided an excellent sense of structure throughout: non-interventionist perhaps, but none the worse for that. Damrau and Kaufmann, after all, were intended to be the ‘stars’ here.

 

In general, but only in general, Damrau’s performances – roughly alternating, yet with a few exceptions – were knowing, whilst Kaufmann’s were lovelorn. Such is the order of things in this ‘German Italy’. Metaphysics, when they reared their head – more in Wolf than in Heyse – tended to be the tenor’s. Was he right to make relatively little of them? I am not sure that right or wrong makes much sense here. Perhaps it is all, or mostly, in inverted commas anyway. There were a few occasions when I found Kaufmann, especially during the first half, somewhat generalised, but such generality remains a very superior form: more baritonal still than I can recall having heard him, yet with an ardent, show-stopping tenor, even upper-case Tenor, that puts one in mind, just in time, of his Walther (‘Ihr seid die Allerschönste’) or his Bacchus (‘Nicht länger kann ich singen’). And Damrau was perfectly capable of responding, of singing about his singing, as for instance, in ‘Mein Liebster singt am Haus’, to which Kaufmann’s ‘Ein Ständchen Euch zu bringen’ came as the perfect response, and so on. Piano and voice together in the latter song conveyed to near perfection the shallow yet genuine sexual impetuosity of youth. (Or is that just what older people think?) The lightness of a wastrel’s self-pity in ‘O wüsstest du, wie viel ich deinetwegen,’ was likewise finely judged. So too was the cruelty of his beloved in ‘Du denkst mit einem Fädchen’.

 

Yet, as the two archetypes, stereotypes, call them what you will, drew closer towards the end of the first half, there was genuine affection too, or so one thought. The rocking piano in ‘Nun lass uns Frieden schliessen’ suggested, without unnecessary underlining, a peace perhaps all the more interesting, or at least characteristic, for its lack of interest in passing all understanding. For, as that half had climaxed with an acknowledged role for Wolf’s Lisztian Romantic inheritance, so the piano harmonies of the second half took up from that half-destination, taking us somewhere new, briefly darker (the austere Doppelgänger flirtation of ‘Wir haben beide lange Zeit geschweiegen’) and ultimately, once again, ‘lighter’, yet perhaps never truly ‘light’. Sweetness of death (‘Sterb’ ich, so hüllt in Blumen meine Glieder’) intervened, yet was it but an act, the commedia dell’arte perhaps, or, as the Marschallin would soon have it, ‘eine wienerische Maskerad[e]’. Increasingly, neither party wished truly to resist, whilst making great play of doing so: on stage as well as in music. An air of Straussian sophistication became more marked, without ever shading into mere cynicism. If the ‘girl’ were always going to win, that was as it ‘should’ be. There were enough qualifications, or potential alternative paths and readings, though, to make one wonder. And then to wonder – ‘lightly’ or no – why one was wondering at all.

 

 

Kaufmann/Deutsch - Schumann, Duparc, and Britten, 4 February 2017

Barbican Hall

Schumann – Kerner-Lieder, op.35

Duparc – L’Invitation au voyage; Phidylé; Le Manoir de Rosemonde; Chanson triste; La Vie antérieure
Britten – Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo, op.22

Jonas Kaufmann (tenor)

Helmut Deutsch (piano)

Just a diary item, here, to remind me that I went, and what I heard: sorry… I decided, not least in the light of both having been under the weather and being very busy, that it would be good to take advantage of an opportunity to attend without writing. I am sure that many others who were there at this excellent recital will have accounts for you, in any case. My highlight? Hearing the Duparc songs sound so post-Wagnerian from Jonas Kaufmann and so post-Lisztian from Helmut Deutsch. Schumann and Britten received right royal treatment too. I shall stop now, though, before this metamorphoses into a review… Normal service will be resumed very soon.

Kaufmann/Deutsch - Schumann, Wagner, and Liszt, 4 January 2015

Wigmore Hall

Schumann – Kerner Lieder, op.35: no.1, ‘Lust der Sturmnacht’, no.4, ‘Erster Grün’, no.7, ‘Wanderung’, no.9, ‘Frage’, no.10, ‘Stille Tranen’

Dichterliebe, op.48

Wagner – Wesendonck Lieder

Liszt – Three Petrarch Sonnets, S 270

Jonas Kaufmann (tenor)

Helmut Deutsch (piano)

 

Although 2015 has only just begun, it is difficult to imagine that there will prove a more difficult musical ticket to acquire than one for Jonas Kaufmann’s Wigmore Hall recital. Having abandoned all hope, I was extremely fortunate to snap up a return the day beforehand. (Many thanks, far from incidentally, to the ever-helpful Wigmore Hall in that respect!) It is equally difficult to imagine that anyone will have attended the recital and been disappointed – unless, that is, he or she, went along with that intent, and even then I think it would have been difficult to follow through that intent. Whilst I found the second half still more impressive than the first, any reservations I might have held were far from earth-shattering.

 

One might have been the programming of the first half itself. It seemed a pity only to have five of Schumann’s Kerner Lieder, and I wondered whether some more Liszt, or perhaps even some Schubert or Strauss, might have complemented the other songs better. But I was probably just being ungrateful and/or greedy, since there was much to enjoy on the programme’s own terms. Kaufmann crooned a little too often for my taste here, especially in no.9, ‘Frage’. Even there, however, his imploring rendition exploited most of what is best about a more ‘operatic’ approach to Lieder-singing. (A great deal of nonsense is spoken about the relationship between song and opera, largely by self-appointed guardians of the purity of the ‘Lied’. The relationship is in fact, complex, concerning both work and performance, and different artists will quite rightly bring different strengths to their interpretations.) The dark, impetuous opening ‘Lust der Sturmnacht’ set up welcome, necessary contrast in a properly innig ‘Erstes Grün’, leaving this listener at least with a lump in his throat fit to recall first or at least early love. ‘Wanderung’ seemed to unite both tendencies, suggesting cannier programming than I had first allowed. And the final ‘Stille Tränen’ proved ‘operatic’ in the best, blazing sense, Helmut Deutsch’s well-nigh orchestral ‘accompaniment’ equally crucial here. Indeed, throughout I was often just as impressed by Deutsch’s contribution, especially in this first half, in which he proved himself, as if proof were needed, a Schumann player of true distinction. Moreover, the two players not only complemented each other but supported and incited each other in a way that only the greatest partnerships can.

 

Dichterliebe followed. ‘Im wunderschönen Monat Mai’ was euphoniously expectant to a degree. Here, and indeed throughout the cycle, Deutsch’s piano voicing was what one might expect from a solo pianist tuned one-night collaborator; works such as the Arabeske, Faschingsschwank aus Wien, and so on often coming to mind. (It would, I suspect, be wonderful to hear him in some of the solo works.) The quickness, in more than one sense, of the implied heartbeat in ‘Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube’ was something no listener could ignore. Subtle artistry such as Kaufmann’s lingering, enough but not too much, on ‘Ich liebe dich’ in the following ‘Wenn ich in deine Augen seh’’ emphasised a Romantic longing that seemed precisely Schumann’s own. There was not so much in the way of irony, but that is a characteristic of Schumann’s response to Heine’s far more ironic verse, and a climax such as that to ‘Ich grolle nicht’ brought its own rewards, such as cannot be found in ‘straight’ Heine. (One small(-ish) gripe whilst speaking of the verse: Richard Stokes’s programme notes, whilst interesting and informative upon Heine, had little to say concerning Schumann’s setting of Heine’s verse; moreover, they had almost nothing at all to say on Wagner’s or Liszt’s music.) Under Deutsch’s fingers, one truly heard the wedding band in ‘Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen’; Mahler seemed briefly to beckon. ‘Aus alten Märchen’ offered a perfect instance of the two musicians on stage collaborating to provide something greater than the sum of its parts, the sense of German fairytale delight, its roots perhaps in Weber as much as in the Brothers Grimm, quite a relief for one song at least. Of course, ‘Die alten, bösen Lieder’ was still to come. Resolute to begin with, the music seemed to sink in performance with the coffin of Heine’s text. Schumann’s – and Deutsch’s – Bachian postlude, however, offered magic that somehow went ‘beyond’, in any number of ways.

 

It is an unusual thing indeed to hear a man sing the Wesendonck Lieder, though I am not entirely sure why, especially in the case of the original, piano version. Not once during this performance, following the interval, did it seem odd, or did I even reflect that this was not as it ‘should’ or at least would usually be. Kaufmann indeed seemed just right for Wagner’s style, the line of the opening ‘Der Engel’ immediately announcing its kinship with the composer’s operas (and, if one must draw the distinction, his music-dramas too). Deutsch too, and I do not mean this as a faint compliment, captured Wagner’s piano style very well, wittingly or otherwise offering connections with, for instance, the Sonata in A-flat major, also, far from coincidentally, written with Mathilde Wesendonck in mind. (It is a far better piece than its allegedly cultured despisers would have you believe.) ‘Stehe still!’ intensified the impression of a singer every inch a Siegmund. The clarity and purpose of ‘Im Treibhaus’, Deutsch’s achievement at least as much as Kaufmann’s, could not but put to shame the aimless meanderings of Antonio Pappano’s latest attempt at Wagner conducting at Covent Garden, and heightened both the regret that we never hear Kaufmann there in German repertoire and also the longing we should feel to hear him as Tristan. The words ‘Schweigens Dunkel’ suggested a darkness, again without undue exaggeration, that was truly musical – which is to say, according to Wagner’s world-view of the time, truly metaphysical. Deutsch’s piano part towards the song’s close rightly hinted at Schoenberg. ‘Schmerzen’ offered another experience ‘after “Winterstürme”’, preparing the way for a ‘Träume’ full of erotic expectation and fulfilment.

 

Finally, perhaps the greatest performance of the evening: Liszt’s Petrarch Sonnets, Kaufmann’s mix of the Germanic and the Italianate perfectly complimenting Liszt’s own. Occasionally, I might have liked something a little more assertive here from Deutsch, but perhaps he was ensuring that the greatest of all pianist-composers did not unduly favour his own instrument. Kaufmann’s long ‘operatic’ line was superlatively fitted to Liszt’s writing. No.47, ‘Benedetto sia ‘l giorno’ benefited not only from that, but also from such splendid attention to detail as Kaufmann’s crescendo on the second syllable of ‘Benedette [le voci tante]’, itself echoed in the general crescendo of that third stanza so far as the end of its third line: the calling of Laura’s name vividly portrayed, re-enacted, memorialised. The final stanza simply sent shivers down the spine. ‘Pace non trovo’ amply justified a relatively swift tempo – probably more suited to vocal than solo piano performance. When Kaufmann sang of embracing the whole world (‘tutto ’l mondo abbraccio’) one genuinely believed it to be a possibility. The range of colours employed, even on a single word, such as ‘impaccio’, had almost to be heard to be believed. Deutsch again had one relish the extraordinary piano writing, which for all the unrecognised virtues of Wagner’s, effortlessly surpasses his. ‘I’ vidi in terra angelici costumi’ proved, fittingly, the most seductive of all, the sweetness of the final stanza – ‘Tanta dolcezza avea pien l’aer e ’l vento’ and all – an object lesson in Romantic style and aptness of conclusion. There remained a rapt Schumann ‘Mondnacht’. Too beautiful? I wondered at the time, but such puritanism was readily banished when I found it lingering in my mind’s ear the following morning.

 

 

Munich Opera Festival (4) - Volle/Deutsch: Winterreise, 21 July 2014

Prinzregententheater, Munich

Michael Volle (baritone)

Helmut Deutsch (piano)

 

One of the glories of the Munich Opera Festival is its series of Lieder recitals: not those curious concerts one hears of elsewhere, in which ‘star’ singers sing miscellaneous operatic arias, accompanied by pick-up-bands who occasionally throw in an overture or two, but serious song recitals. Londoners are, of course, spoiled when it comes to such matters, with the Wigmore Hall unquestionably supreme in the world as a song and chamber venue, but a festival in which Jonas Kaufmann and Michael Volle offer recitals, the latter a late replacement for an indisposed René Pape, has nothing to fear from comparisons. Pape’s promised programme had intrigued: whoever would have thought of his luxurious, ever-so-German bass in Roger Quilter? (Mussorgsky and Schumann were more like it.) Nevertheless, it was not remotely a disappointment to be faced with the prospect of a Winterreise from Volle and Helmut Deutsch; nor was it a disappointment in reality.

 

Having recently heard Kaufmann, with the same pianist, at the Royal Opera House, comparisons were always likely to suggest themselves, however much one strained to take the performance on its own terms. In the abstract, I tend to think that my preference is for a tenor in this cycle, but, as when one hears great recorded baritone performances from the past, the question never presented itself. Occasionally, my ear reminded me that it was not hearing the ‘right’ key, but even when it did so, I was not remotely troubled by the reminder. For, if there is no ‘ideal’ performance of this work in the singular, there are surely a good few ‘ideals’, and Volle comes as close to anyone in the plural. His is not a performance imbued with existential Angst from the outset; this is not the expressionism of, say, a Matthias Goerne. Indeed, ‘Gute Nacht’ sounded convincingly as a continuation if not from the end of Die schöne Müllerin – for the story there ends all too clearly – then from the world in which much of the earlier cycle takes place. There was plenty of scope then, for development, for a different turn to be taken, but what that turn might be was not yet inevitable. We might know that hopes would be frustrated, but we could sense, whether from Volle’s even-handed attention to words, to music, to their alchemy, or from Deutsch’s equal yet different dramatic precision in the piano part. Indeed, at times it seemed, intriguingly and convincingly, that Schubert’s musical forms and figurations, be they quasi-‘autonomous’ or clearly derived from the words, were as much a driving force as Wilhelm Müller’s poem itself, Schubert’s still under-explored closeness to Wagner made manifest.

 

Although I have not yet heard Volle as Wotan, there was something of the god’s Walküre monologues to our hero’s self-laceration, one in which, even at the extremity of, say, ‘Letzte Hoffnung’, this remained song, and Romantic song at that. Part and parcel of that characterisation, and certainly in no way opposed to it, was Deutsch’s pinpointing of the stabbing piano part: never can it have sounded closer to that arch-late-Romantic, Anton Webern, than here. What the most crucial turning-point(s) will be in this most chilling of descents will always be a matter of debate, whether in terms of performance or one’s own reception. Here, I could not help but think that it was this moment of ‘last hope’, still more than the signpost of ‘Der Wegweiser’ in which the moment of no turning back came. That there were several candidates, not competing but furthering the claims of each other, spoke very well of a narrative experience that held one spellbound throughout. The final extremes of no room at the Wirtshaus, the hallucinatory shining of three winter suns, and that terrifying, inevitable numbness of a finely observed, quite un-hysterical ‘Der Leiermann’ took us where we had to go, and in a sense, like the ‘hero’, we welcomed it as necessary catharsis. This was a less operatic Winterreise than Kaufmann’s. (Not that there is necessarily anything wrong with operatic influence, for every great artist will bring something different from his strengths and experience.) If anything, I think it touched me even more deeply, with an Innigkeit that seemed to find its source in the very heart of German Romanticism. For this seemed to be less ‘Volle’s Winterreise’ than Winterreise, pure and simple, however illusory that idea(l) might be.

Kaufmann/Deutsch - Winterreise, 6 April 2014

Royal Opera House

Schubert – Winterreise, D 911

Jonas Kaufmann (tenor)
Helmut Deutsch (piano)

Was the Royal Opera House the ideal venue for a performance of Winterreise, whether by Jonas Kaufmann or anyone else? No, for all the reasons you might suspect – and probably a few more. If only this could have taken place at the Wigmore Hall instead, though then tickets would have been still more difficult to come by (unless, that is, the sensible approach had been adopted of scheduling multiple performances, and prohibiting anyone from attending more than one). In any case, I have been to Lieder recitals in other, less-than-ideal venues before. Hearing Thomas Quasthoff and Daniel Barenboim perform this very work in the Berlin Philharmonie also proved a trial. And the principal reason then was the same as it was here: audience behaviour. Mobile telephones, strange rubbing noises, dropping of objects, you name it… But far and away the worst, as in Berlin, was the bronchial brigade. During songs, the terror was not too bad, though there were still a few wonderfully-timed displays; but the onslaught that greeted even the shortest of pauses, and which continued some way into Helmut Deutsch’s introduction to the next song and sometimes beyond, did its best to kill atmosphere, continuity, and most crucial, concentration alike. This was not the odd cough, unavoidable if irritating, this was rank selfishness from people who had no business setting foot anywhere near a performance. In Berlin, Quasthoff was so angered that he broke off part way through to plead – notably, in English – with the audience to desist. Such is hardly Kaufmann’s style, but he – and we – should never have had to endure what we did. It would be hoping for too much that the perpetrators would feel any sense of shame concerning their behaviour; we shall simply have to hope that the Almighty extends their stays in purgatory or elsewhere accordingly. And seriously, opera houses and concert halls should give thought to banning such sociopaths. Even if prices had been less high than on this occasion, or indeed admission had been free, performers and the rest of the audience alike deserve a modicum of consideration.

With that in mind, I shall have to limit myself to a few observations rather than offer a more detailed review. Insofar as it was possible as a listener to maintain concentration, one received an excellent sense of the songs as a cycle, as far more than the sum of their parts, from both Kaufmann and Deutsch. Unfortunately, that ‘insofar’ could not be entirely surmounted. To begin with, I wondered whether Kaufmann was not a little too withdrawn, inward-looking, especially for so large a venue, but not only did his performance draw one in, make one listen, it also revealed itself according to a longer-term plan. Thus the fine array of colourings at his disposal was not lavished upon ‘Gute Nacht’. Both performers, indeed, proved if not reticent, then cleverly expository. A journey, and a winter’s journey at that, had to be made; the world of weather-vane and frozen tears moved, but within limits, for it was but a starting-point. Likewise the colours of ‘Der Lindenbaum’, whilst different, whilst permitting a relative thaw, a relative hope, were never remotely garish; the journey had commenced, and everything was to be experienced upon its terms.

That said, when passions were truly roused, Kaufmann ensured that one knew it. It was striking to hear him sound quite so baritonal a tenor – irrespective, or almost so of the pitch. No wonder he makes so fine a Siegmund. Doubtless there would be some who would decry, or at least query, his performance as ‘operatic’, an all-too-easy evasion of very difficult questions. Lieder do not, any more than any other repertoire, exist in a vacuum; music, verse, drama, all manner of components and influences can and should combine to offer a musico-dramatic experience just as intense as that of a Wagner drama. (Indeed, the relationship between Schubert and Wagner is in need of far greater attention than anyone has yet accorded it.) Performers of all persuasions make choices; what matters is whether they convince. It would be absurd to hold against a performer his ability to maintain a vocal line. That does not mean in and of itself that he is not paying attention to the text. Kaufmann’s musicality shone through, liberated by sensitivity and technique alike; indeed, the directness of his verbal expression matched that of his musical expression. More to the point, there was rarely the slightest hint of disjuncture between the two. The ardent quality of Kaufmann’s hopes was all the more moving on account of his deeply considered performance – perhaps it was a little more akin to assumption of a role than to what many recital hall habitués would expect, but so what? – and its dynamically variegated quality. The quietest of ppp utterances could readily be heard, even given the venue and the audience; more importantly, it always had musico-dramatic warrant. This was a committed performance in the best of senses.

Moreover, Deutsch’s performance at the piano proved far more than a bedrock, though in many ways it certainly fulfilled that role too. His was not an overtly demonstrative account, drawing attention to pictorial aspects of the piano part and detracting, or at least distracting, from the overall journey. But it was perceptive nonetheless. The aethereal lightness to the opening of ‘Frühlingstraum’ was agonising, just as much for Deutsch’s attempt to smile through major-mode tears as for Kaufmann’s. The bipolar quality to the song was, moreover, beautifully, meaningfully captured, without forays into expressionist territory. (Not that I think there is anything wrong with the latter; such an approach can work very well, but it is not the only approach, and can often descend into mere caricature.) The Webern-intimations of ‘Letzte Hoffnung’ drew their crystalline terror from Deutsch, again at least as much as from Kaufmann, for theirs was a true partnerships – whatever the Kaufmann ‘fans’ might have come for. This would have been a far less complete, far less glacial, experience without Deutsch.

Finally, ‘Der Leiermann’, where piano stasis could provide the perfect setting for the existential devastation of words and halting vocal line. Kaufmann finally offered something that few, if any, other singers could or would dare: a final crescendo, beautiful yes but agonisingly, dramatically so, reminiscent in the abstract perhaps of his Florestan and yet entirely different in context. This was a final raging against the dying of the light, but we knew it would dissipate into nothing; as indeed, equally finely judged, it did. And this was nothingness rather than nihilism: Schubert rather than Mahler. A cough, needless to say, immediately followed – but after that, even this audience had the grace to remain silent for a little while.

Volle/Deutsch - Schubert, Mahler, Schumann, Clara Schumann, and Strauss, 13 December 2013

Wigmore Hall

Schubert – Greisengesang, D 778

Du bist die Ruh, D 776
Lachen und Weinen, D 777
Daß sie hier gewesen, D 775
Sei mir gegrüßt, D 741
Mahler – Rückert-Lieder
Schumann – Widmung, op.25 no.1
Der Himmel hat eine Träne geweint, op.37 no.1
Clara Schumann – Liebst du um Schönheit, op.12 no.1
Schumann – Mein schooner Stern! op.101 no.4
Clara Schumann – Warum willst du and’re fragen, op.12 no.3
Schumann – Aus den ‘Östlichen Rosen’, op.25 no.25
Zum Schluß, op.25 no.26
Strauss – Vom künftigen Alter, op.87 no.1
Und dann nicht mehr, op.87 no.3
Im Sonnenschein, op.87 no.4

Michael Volle (baritone)

Helmut Deutsch (piano)

 

A wonderful recital of songs to texts by Friedrich Rückert, a recital about which I find it difficult to summon up the slightest reservation. (If I must, it would be the songs of Clara Schumann: as well performed as everything else, but of considerably lesser musical interest.) Michael Volle and Helmut Deutsch imparted a due sense of occasion to everything they did; even their dressing in evening tails, unusual for the Wigmore Hall, helped announce that this would be no ordinary evening.

 

The opening Schubert group showed no signs of limbering up, Volle’s voice and Deutsch’s fingers being perfectly primed from the off. Though an ‘accompanist’, Deutsch certainly does not sound like one; his part in the musical proceedings proving just as generative as that of Volle. There was real pianistic muscle, but just as telling was the voice-leading, not for its own sake (as one might sometimes experience with non-‘accompanist’ pianists), but as part of a collaborative response to text and music alike. Volle’s diction was perfect throughout, but more important was the sense that every word mattered; it was not merely pronounced, but felt and communicated. And so, Schubert’s responses to Rückert could be experienced to a fullness we almost have no right to expect. Greisengesang chilled, Volle offering telling, unexaggerated rubato, at the end of a number of the stanzas. ‘Doch warm ist mir’s geblieben/Im Wohngemach’: the warmth of the parlour lingered ever so slightly in the mind – and in the bones. Rapture, yet specific rather than generalised, characterised Du bist der Ruh, whilst the repetitions of ‘Sei mir gegrüßt! Sei mir geküßt!’ in the final song of the group always brought something new, or at least seemed to do so. The winning, utterly Schubertian lilt could not be attributed to either Volle or Deutsch; this was a true partnership.

 

Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder followed. Deutsch’s account of the piano parts was such as almost to have one forget how much one (should have) missed the orchestra; it was only really in ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’ that I felt the odd pang in that respect, and that was certainly not the pianist’s doing. Again he showed equal command of both the alchemy of word and music, and of the more ‘purely’ musical devices, the sense of motivic development being especially strong. Not that there was any lack of atmosphere: the stillness – a cliché, doubtless, but none the less true for that – of ‘Um Mitternacht’ an equal tribute to the devotion of both artists. If there were odd occasions when Volle’s intonation slipped, they counted for almost nothing. What did count was the alliance of initial immediacy of expression and a mediated cultural hinterland; though the voices are very different, I thought more than once of Fischer-Dieskau at his best.

 

If Clara Schumann’s songs are never likely to change anyone’s life, they are competently written and pleasant enough. It is difficult to imagine them receiving stronger advocacy than here. Robert’s songs, on the other hand, offered all the magic and depth of feeling one could have hoped for. Cleverly selected and positioned, there was a true sense of development from ‘Widmung’ to ‘Zum Schluß’, with the songs by Clara at the very least reminding one of true object of Robert’s affections. A radiance not unlike that earlier experienced in Du bist die Ruh was, quite rightly, the concluding sentiment, leading ‘naturally’ – which, in reality, is to say with an excellent level of preparation and performance – into the more operatic inspirations of Strauss. Volle drew upon all the dramatic gifts at his disposal – and they are many – to produce with Deutsch an almost scena-like intensity in Vom künftigen Alter. Simply managing to have one’s fingers navigate the notes is often no mean feat in these songs, but Deutsch penetrated to the soul, technique liberating the imagination. A typically equivocal sunshine – should it actually be sunset? – crowned a distinguished recital indeed.

Dasch/Deutsch - Mahler, Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, and Korngold, 9 July 2013

 

Wigmore Hall

Mahler – Des Knaben Wunderhorn: selection

Zemlinsky – Altdeutsches Minnelied, op.2
Das bucklichte Männlein, op.22 no.6
Entbietung, op.7 no.2
Meeraugen, op.7 no.3
Schoenberg – Wie Georg von Frundsberg von sich selber sang, op.3 no.1
Warnung, op.3 no.3
Mädchenlied, op.6 no.3
Der Wanderer, op.6 no.8
Korngold – Schneeglöckchen, op.9 no.1
Die Sperlinge, op.5 no.7
Was Du mir bist?, op.22 no.1
Mit Dir zu schweigen, op.22 no.2
Welt ist stille eingeschlafen, op.22 no.3

Annette Dasch (soprano)

Helmut Deutsch (piano)

 

This was an excellent recital: committed performances from both artists, and a fascinating programme. Annette Dasch, whom I last heard as Elsa in Bayreuth’s Lohengrin last year, proved an equally captivating recitalist; Helmut Deutsch may need no introduction as a collaborative pianist, but his artistry should not be taken for granted either.

 

The first half was devoted to ten of Mahler’s Wunderhorn songs. Deutsch offered a wonderfully slow, teasing introduction to ‘Rheinlegendchen’, its lilt and indeed harmonies looking forward to Schoenberg’s Brettl-Lieder. Dasch set out her stall from the outset, making a great deal of the words, especially during the stanza in which we hear of the little gold ring being swallowed by a fish, to be served ‘at the King’s own table’. There followed a splendidly militaristic ‘Trost im Unglück’, prior to relaxation. Dasch presented two quite different ‘voices’ for the hussar and the girl; the latter’s ‘away with you; I have had my fill’ (‘Und geh’ du nur hin, Ich had mein Teil’) delivered through audibly clenched teeth. ‘Zu Straßburd auf der Schanz’ benefited from a highly atmospheric piano introduction, the Alphorn sounding through pedalled melancholy. Dissonances throughout the song, and again, noticeably in the later ‘Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen,’ sounded all the more biting in the sparseness of a piano ‘accompaniment’ than when heard in their more familiar orchestral guise. ‘Lied des Verfolgten im Turm’ offered another opportunity, well taken, for Dasch to distinguish between ‘characters’. The almost paradoxical phantasmagorical clarity of the piano part sounded verily Debussyan. A deeply felt ‘centre’ to the first half was afforded by both ‘Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen’ and the following ‘Urlicht’. The warmest of futile consolation was communicated in the former: ‘Willkommen, lieber Knabe mein, So long hast du gestanden.’ We knew that it would not last, long before its ghostly conclusion. ‘Urlicht’ offered a quite extraordinary sense of ‘revelation’, largely through that elusive ability to permit words and music to speak ‘for themselves’. Its ecstatic progress whetted the appetite for the rest of the Second Symphony, but instead it was to be followed by a sardonic, though occasionally shrill, account of ‘Wer hast dies Liedlein erdacht?’ The journey of ‘Ich ging mit Lust’ was lovingly and knowingly traced, that sense of knowingness certainly present also in the ensuing ‘Verlorne Müh’. Mahler’s inveterate sophistication showed through, as it should, even when the surface might seem ‘simple’. ‘Scheiden und Meiden’ rounded off the Wunderhorn selection, a properly ambivalent Mahlerian climax.

 

Zemlinsky’s songs made a welcome appearance at the beginning of the second half. His ‘Altdeutsches Minnelied’ proved more direct than Mahler’s songs, both in work and performance, though the piano part was certainly not without its subtle surprises. ‘Das bucklichte Männlein,’ a Wunderhorn song, comes harmonically from quite a different world, reflecting the chronological gap between the two songs: 1895-6 and 1934, respectively. The extraordinary latter song sounds as post-Schoenbergian as anything I have heard from Zemlinsky: a true discovery (at any rate for me). Dasch and Deutsch offered a superlatively animated performance, every note and every word being made to count. Dasch’s extraordinary vocal production for the final two lines, hushed and grotesque, truly chilled: ‘“Liebes Kindlien, ach, ich bitt, Bet’ für’s bucklicht Männlein mit!’” The hunchback – shades of Zemlinsky’s famed ugliness? – petitioned the child, as best he could, to pray for him too.  ‘Entbietung’ and ‘Meeraugen’ are both Richard Dehmel settings from 1898. Both took us back to a Tristan-esque world, in which Dasch allowed her gifts as a hochdramatisch soprano full rein, the impulsive eroticism of the former leading into an exquisite account of the latter, seemingly well along the way, at least at times, toward suspension of tonality.

 

Such talk inevitably has one think of Schoenberg, to whom we turned for the next group. Another Wunderhorn song was to be heard with ‘Wie Georg von Frundsberg von sich selber sang’. It offered another apparent return to relative straightforwardness, but the piano part, especially in Deutsch’s hands, soon showed otherwise, its Brahmsian ‘involved’ quality so utterly characteristic of the composer. Dasch’s performance again drew upon her operatic experience, whilst remaining true to the tradition of Lieder-singing. It would be an excellent thing to hear more Schoenberg from these artists, preferably on disc too. ‘Warnung’ is another Dehmel song. It proved properly disquieting, its musical violence mirroring, furthering  that of the text with its dog and ‘blood-red carnations’. ‘Mädchenlied’ proved as erotic as anything in Berg, its musical complexity both as work and performance drawing one similarly into a sinful labyrinth. ‘Der Wanderer’ showed itself to be the most overtly Tristan­-esque of the Schoenberg songs, recalling Zemlinsky’s ‘Meeraaugen’, and yet going further, in its approach toward the air of another planet.

 

Though I find Korngold’s operas difficult to take – wild horses would not drag me back to another performance of Das Wunder der Heliane – there is real craftsmanship to enjoy in his songs. ‘Schneeglöckchen’ opened the group with an apt change of performative register: late Romanticism, or whatever we want to call it, yet thankfully not overheated. Deutsch in particular offered a fine sense of harmonic understanding and surprise. ‘Die Sperlinge’, another Eichendorff song, appeared in context almost as if a scherzo, albeit with a duly radiant conclusion, a true impression of ‘opening out’. The latter quality was present also in the following ‘Was Du mir bist’, though by now there was perhaps a little overheating: more a matter of work than performance. Likewise, by the end of ‘Mit Dir zu schweigen’, there was something of a sense of too much Jugendstil; something a little more Bauhaus-like would have been a good antidote. That said, performances were excellent; the final ‘Welt ist stille eingeschlafen’ offered musical as well as verbal consummation. As an encore we heard the Shakespeare setting, ‘My mistress’ eyes’ (Sonnet 130), whose ambivalent harmonic progress put me in mind both of the earlier Abschiedslieder and even the late F-sharp major Symphony. (Both of these pieces, incidentally, may be found on an excellent CD from the late Edward Downes.)

 

Goerne/Deutsch - Schubert Lieder (II), 2 March 2010

Wigmore Hall

An die untergehende Sonne, D 457
Der Tod und das Mädchen, D 531
Die Rose, D 745
Erinnerung, D 101
Litanei auf das Fest aller Seelen, D 343
Auf dem Wasser zu singen, D 774
Abendbilder, D 650
Nach einem Gewitter, D 561
Der Zwerg, D 771
Im Frühling, D 882
Die Blumensprache, D 519
Viola, D 786
An die Entfernte, D 765
Bei dir allein! D 866/2
Ganymed, D 544

Matthias Goerne (baritone)
Helmut Deutsch (piano)

The second of Matthias Goerne’s and Helmut Deutsch’s Schubert recitals (see here for the first) was perhaps still more impressive than its predecessor, such difference as there was being in good part attributable to the higher quality of the verse. Franz von Schober’s tedious Viola was an exception, but Goerne and Deutsch gave it a better account than it perhaps deserved. What is one to make of Spring, the bridegroom, wresting his ice-weapon (Eiswehr) from Winter, or the ‘little breast’ of the violet? Quite a lot, perhaps; at least such instances amuse, unlike the catalogue of flowers, or the incomprehensible sounding of the snowdrop.

The recital opened as it meant to go on, however, with an appropriately leisurely An die untergehende Sonne, whose direction – sunset – was yet clear throughout. Death was given explicit form, indeed character, in Der Tod und das Mädchen. I find it impossible not to think of the quartet here, but Deutsch’s ineffable sadness to the piano prelude possessed its own character and prepared the way admirably for the maiden’s terror, so harrowingly and fleetingly portrayed by Goerne. Die Rose exuded the schöne Warme of Schlegel’s opening line, though death proved still more beautiful. And the whispers of dying breezes haunted Erinnerung too. What might happen after death can at best be glimpsed, which is perhaps what we did in the Jacobi setting, Litanei auf das Fest aller Seelen. Goerne’s beauty of tone rendered the ultimate repose a comforting, even seductive prospect, but this remained serious stuff: a litany, after all. The pregnancy of the pause before the final line, in which the hope of eternal peace is once again enunciated, was moving indeed. The piano is every inch the equal partner in the marvellous Auf dem Wasser zu singen. Here, Deutsch vouchsafed us intimations perhaps of Chopin, albeit within the content of still-Classical form. Deutsch’s projection of the vesper-bell in Abendbilder was an object lesion in meaningful tone-painting, which never once sought to draw attention to itself. Goerne’s drawing upon seemingly endless reserves of breath was equally impressive, as was the subtlety of his dynamic contrasts in Nach einem Gewitter. For the final number of the first half, we heard the Flying Dutchman-like Der Zwerg. Goerne turned Gothic storyteller, urgent and tender. The dwarf’s heart seemed almost literally to burn with desire for the queen, such was the intensity of the singer’s rendition. And the menace in the piano part managed both to suggest an orchestra and to remain impeccably pianistic in character.

Im Frühling is a truly lovely song, and so it sounded here. Its virtues are as much in musical form as in poetic response; Schubert’s modulations were given musical and verbal life. The advertised Stimme der Liebe was replaced, though I am afraid I know not by what. The generally lighter second half concluded with subtlety in its final three items. Goerne was not afraid to use his voice at something approaching, at least apparently, full throttle in the climaxes to An die Entfernte and Bei dir allein! At least as impressive, however, was once again the subtlety of his shading – and that of his partner. Mozartian poise and an almost Rococo-like melismatic flowering characterised the concluding Ganymed: not only beautiful in rendition but concerned with the essence and ambiguities of beauty itself. If it captured the heart, it also probed: a fitting tribute to Schubert himself.

Goerne/Deutsch - Schubert Lieder, 28 February 2010

Wigmore Hall

Der Jüngling und der Tod, D 545
Das Lied im Grünen, D 917
Die Herbstnacht, D 404
Lied (Ins stille Land), D 403
Der Herbstabend, D 405
Drang in die Ferne, D770
An mein Herz, D 860
Der Wanderer, D 649
Über Wildemann, D 884
Klage, D 371
Am Bach im Frühling, D 361
An die Laute, D 905
Des Fräuleins Liebeslauschen, D 698
Augenlied, D 297
Du bist die Ruh, D 776
An die Musik, D 547
An eine Quelle, D 530
Der Sänger am Felsen, D 482
Abschied von der Harfe, D 406
Liedesend, D 473

Matthias Goerne (baritone)
Helmut Deutsch (piano)

I hope it does not sound unduly eccentric to begin by addressing of the programme notes to this recital. For often, the first engagement an audience member experiences with a performance will be from the prospectus offered in the programme notes. In many respects, the notes, from Richard Stokes, were informative, yet at the same time, they proved apologetic and somewhat evasive. The opening reads as follows:

Only Friedrich Rückert and Friedrich von Schlegel of tonight’s poets feature in histories and anthologies of German Literature. But as W.H. Auden wrote in The Poet’s Tongue: ‘We do not want to read “great” poetry all the time, and a good anthology should contain poems for every mood” – a sentiment that is exemplified by tonight’s concert. Schubert was as literary as any of the great Lieder composers (witness his settings of Heine, Goethe, and Schiller), but he also had a capacity for making friends; and in the heady artistic ambience of Biedermeier Vienna, where so many of Schubert’s friends were poets, painters, or composers, it was entirely natural that he should treat his poet friends as seriously as they treated him – indeed, the success of the Schubertiaden depended on such mutual respect. If Schubert composes some 150 songs to the minor verse of his friends and acquaintances, that does not imply a lack of literary awareness, but rather a gift for friendship.

I am not sure that it is an effective strategy to open by effectively apologising for the quality of the verse, though on this occasion, I think that it would require a tin ear to fail to recognise the inferior nature of some of the texts – and, indeed, to fail to sense relief when the Schlegel setting, Der Wanderer, and the Rückert Du bist die Ruh were presented. (Strangely, the butterfly failed to show its wings in the promised but denied Schlegel Der Schmetterling.) It is true that great verse does not guarantee great song, and equally that mediocre verse may lend itself to great setting. But there was, especially earlier on, perhaps a little much of the strophic for my taste, and a little too much of the upbeat mood for Matthias Goerne: not that he did not sing well, but his truest gifts tend to lie in serious repertoire, the more serious the better.

So much, then, for apologia, but what of evasion? The programme focused heavily, though not exclusively, upon settings of ‘minor’ poets known personally to Schubert, works that would often be performed in the Schubertiaden to which Stokes refers. Nevertheless, the only reference to Schubert’s love-life was to his ‘unsuccessful wooing of Therese Grob … almost certainly reflected in the little known Klage’. Anyone not in the know could be forgiven for failing to realise that Schubert’s apparently harmless ‘Biedermeier’ milieu was bohemian-oppositionist in its politics and morals, its homosexuality often blatant, and that most reputable scholars today consider the case for Schubert’s own homosexuality to lie somewhere between the probable and the unarguable. For those, determined for reasons best known to themselves to ‘defend’ the composer from such ‘charges’, insisting upon concrete ‘evidence’ whilst conspicuously failing to provide any of their own, one might simply point to a composer’s guidance, Hans Werner Henze having expressed incredulity that anyone might doubt that Schubert was gay, for one can hear it in the music. Now, one can take different positions on these questions, but is it not a little odd to fail to mention them, especially in a programme to which they are so directly relevant? For instance – and there are many instances – a letter (8 August 1825) from Antonio Mayer to Franz von Schober, with whom Schubert lodged and the author of the text to two of the present evening’s songs, might fruitfully have been quoted:

I am the happiest of men … - I have a three-coloured cat! … Since you have gone, I have relied much more on cats; it’s better than going to the dogs. I have made the acquaintance of two slender, one imposing, one curious, and two hardworking cats. I could tell you a lot about that, but since I don’t know if my friends are also yours, it would be doubly indiscreet to talk about it, first because it could bore you, and second because I could compromise my cats.

There were reasons why Mayer might have to employ discretion – though it would surely take an exceptionally dull member of Metternich’s secret police not to discern the true concern of this passage – but is there any reason for us to do so? Might it not be enlightening in a recital such as this to explore a ‘gift for friendship’ (Stokes) by compromising Mayer’s cats?

My only real cavil concerning the performances was that Goerne and his pianist, Helmut Deutsch, took a while to suggest doing so themselves. The darker songs were darker, to be sure, but the apparently less consequential songs tended towards the Biedermeier as conventionally understood. Der Jüngling und der Tod sounded from both musicians as if it were a deeper, more considered brother to Erlkönig, the sepulchral piano postlude especially impressive. Then Das Lied im Grünen was beautifully gentle, yet hardly ecstatic. Fair enough, one might say, questioning whether it even should be ecstatic, but the preponderance of prettiness in the strophic songs might have benefited from the odd hint of subversion, if only for variety’s sake. That said, Das Lied im Grünen nevertheless exhibited touches of underlying melancholy, much to its advantage – and to ours. Similarly, Neapolitan harmony in Ins stille Land was made to tell in unexaggerated fashion, though just a touch of greater emphasis would have done no harm. It was certainly welcome to hear true Romantic agitation in An mein Herz, all the more so for being expressed within a tight formal framework. The tensions surely speak of something.

With Schlegel’s Der Wanderer, however, we entered another world, Deutsch unerringly portraying Schubert’s masterly sense of a lack of grounding in the moonlit harmony. Deutsch and Goerne enabled us almost to see, and certainly to feel, the silver of moonlight, its metaphysical import sensed as clearly as its more straightforward representation. One must never settle, always journey. Indeed. And whilst the ensuing Ernst Konrad Friedrich Schulze setting, Über Wildemann, speaks a different language, one also knew that the roaring winds were not simply a natural phenomenon. As the first half drew to a close, one gained the impression that Goerne in particular was seeking to impart unity to the songs by performing them without a break, almost as a cantata or perhaps a cycle of sorts. The sudden paleness of his voice for the words ‘Werd’ ich wieder hellen,’ in Klage, strongly suggested that death would be the only cure for the poet’s predicament. Thereafter, the Romantic sickness unto death, blue flower and all, in Schober’s Am Bach im Frühling, was readily apparent, as much in the subtlety of Deutsch’s brook ripples as in Goerne’s heavy-heartedness. Perhaps, then, the musicians had simply taken a little while fully to get into their stride.

An die Laute, which opened the second half, was charming in its evocation of the lute, hints of something darker emanating from the jealousy of the neighbours’ sons. It set the scene well for the serenade of Des Fräuleins Liebeslauschen. (The missing Schmetterling should have been heard in between.) I very much liked the post-Mozartian – there can be no real turning back – poise of Augenlied, recalled three songs later in the overt portrayal of true Mozartian pathos in Der Sänger am Felsen.

First, though, we heard two of my favourite Schubert Lieder, Du bist die Ruh, and An die Musik. The stillness of the first song was such that one hardly dared breathe – and the audience, unusually for London, behaved relatively well. Through this stillness, the limpidity of Deutsch’s piano part could sing with almost heartbreaking dignity. The Schober setting, An die Musik, was affecting in a more straightforward way – at least on first appearances, for here art conceals art, and perhaps something else too. Liedesend, which closed the recital, offered a conspectus of different moods: sternness, majesty, gentleness, vehemence, clemency, and finally foreboding. It does not quite convince me, though Goerne and Deutsch gave it their all; however, the final foreboding of the grave rather overshadowed the rest, as doubtless it must.