Keenlyside/Martineau - Schubert, 8 May 2023

Wigmore Hall

Winterreise, D 911

Simon Keenlyside (baritone), Malcolm Martineau (piano)

More seasonal than one might expect for early May, Winterreise made for an absorbing close to Wigmore Hall’s coronation weekend (the eve of the anniversary of the Schuman Declaration). Simon Keenlyside and Malcolm Martineau were always likely to prove a box-office draw, and so it turned out to be. As for earlier concerts I attended, a large audience made its enthusiasm clear. The British ‘government’ may continue to spurn the arts as much as it does our common European culture; halls, artists, and audiences know and deserve better. 

If it always takes me time to get used to the sound (and pitch) of a baritone in music written for a tenor, that is my problem. Keenlyside’s experience as a guide doubtless underpinned all he did, but one never had the sense he was repeating himself. This was quite an acted performance: not in the sense of plot, but gesture, expression, pacing across the stage, and so on. It makes no sense, at least to me, to be dogmatic about such things; what works works, and this did, a glance or a stare as telling as an accent or a slur. Martineau’s dependability as a collaborative pianist needs no mention from me. His was a quietly – from time to time, rather less quietly – supportive performance, not the sort of Winterreise one hears from a star solo pianist, but one that both responded to and, occasionally, kept in line Keenlyside’s vision. Much was on the swift side; certainly the opening ‘Gute Nacht’ was. And it was largely, though not entirely, continuous too. This may be off the mark, but I felt Keenlyside’s conception and expression of dramatic trajectory was inspired or at least informed by his experience on stage in opera. If it would be a crude exaggeration to dub this a Wozzeck’s Winterreise, it was difficult – why would one try? – not to find and, in this case, to see as well as hear, parallels and connections. 

That opening song, in many ways quite conventionally lyrical, suggested the protagonist’s fate had yet to be sealed, that possibilities remained. At the same time, the final stanza’s turn to the major, only to be cruelly denied at the end, set up a dualism that would progressively be eroded as the journey proceeded. An angry, even hectoring ‘Die Wetterfahne’ made that clear. Focus, or our reception of it, was split, though always within a greater whole. Keenlyside’s controlled delirium in ‘Erstarrung’ was perfectly judged, the closing line ‘Fliesst auch ihr Bild dahin’, had him reach out both in voice and gesture for the image that would melt, should his heart ever thaw. Hallucinatory questioning in ‘Wasserflut’, born of naïveté rather than cynicism, spilled over into ‘Auf dem Flusse’, set against a spareness of piano writing and performance that brought the drama into relief, erupting in a ‘Rückblick’ whose fury threatened to veer out of control, yet never quite did. If ‘Irrlicht’ summed up the Janus-faced impression so far, by turn fresh and damaged, ‘Frühlingstraum’ extended that further to major-minor-uneasy synthesis.    

‘Die Post’ emerged as a mini-drama of its own from a fine singing-actor, the piano speaking as if chorus commentator or even voice of phenomenon against noumenon. The greying of Keenlyside’s voice on referring to the grave in ‘Der greise Kopf’ was an unmistakeable indicator of where we were heading even before the dreadful scene with the crow (‘Die Krähe’). As the piano depicted its circling, the voice told of something more inward, again noumenal. Through the resignation of illusory returns in ‘Im Dorfe’, ‘Das Wirtshaus’, and finally ‘Die Nebensonnen’, it was clear the die had been cast. ‘Täuschung’ embraced that path, solemnised almost liturgically in a moving, well-nigh Bachian account of ‘Der Wegweiser’ and its sorrow. A Papageno destroyed by experience, yet dignified by it, met the organ-grinder in the final song. All the while, the organ-piano played on, oblivious—or was he?

Gansch/Martineau - Zemlinsky, Berg, and Mahler, 10 October 2021

Wigmore Hall

Zemlinsky: Walzer-Gesänge nach toskanischen Volksliedern, op.6
Berg: Sieben frühe Lieder
Mahler: Des Knaben Wunderhorn: ‘Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht?’, ‘Das irdische Leben’, ‘Ablösung im Sommer’, ‘Scheiden und Meiden’, ‘Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen’, ‘Rheinlegendchen’, ‘Die himmlische Leben’

Christina Gansch (soprano)
Malcolm Martineau (piano)

Song in particular and vocal music more generally were of great importance to Zemlinsky, Berg, and Mahler. In Zemlinsky’s case, more than half of his songs were composed in a short period from 1898 to 1901, these Walzer-Gesänger (1898) after Tuscan folksongs (translated by Ferdinand Gregorovius) included. One falls, perhaps as much out of habit as conviction, upon the word ‘Brahmsian’, but are they really, the obvious Liebeslieder precedent notwithstanding? There are certainly elements that look so on the page; perhaps they would sound more so in certain performances. Here—only here—I felt at times a mismatch between vocal performance and material. Perhaps it was more a matter of warming up, of a larger scale of performance than might have been ideal. Christina Gansch was certainly communicative, though, not only in diction but also in meaning. Or perhaps it was my expectations that were at fault, since I responded more keenly to the darker (within bounds) ‘Ich gehe des Nachts’, not least to its piano writing as vividly conveyed by Malcolm Martineau. The sense of mystery and ultimate communion in ‘Blaues Sternlein’ hinted at more, at a world to come both for Zemlinsky and ‘Austrian’ music more generally. 

Until he took composition lessons with Schoenberg, Berg was above all a composer of Lieder. It is not quite true to say that he was exclusively so, though in 1910 Schoenberg told his publisher that, ‘extraordinarily gifted’ though Berg was when he came to him, ‘his imagination apparently could not work on anything but songs. Even the piano accompaniments to them were songlike. He was absolutely incapable of writing an instrumental movement or inventing an instrumental theme.’ We should be grateful indeed to Schoenberg for his instruction. What would Wozzeck, let alone the Three Orchestral Pieces, op.6, be without the instrumental forms in which Schoenberg had compelled Berg to write? Given the quality of the Seven Early Songs (1905-8)—written during Berg’s studies with Schoenberg, albeit first in harmony, counterpoint, and music theory, only from 1907 in composition—one can well understand why Berg might simply have wished to carry on in that vein, though here already the piano writing is quite different from that in his truly ‘early’ songs. 

Whatever one’s thoughts on the Zemlinsky songs—I was grateful above all for the opportunity to hear them—Berg immediately took us into a different world, darker, more complex, more alluring. The harmonies of ‘Nacht’, voice almost as crucial to their sounding as piano, form and shape the song itself. Whatever the truth of Schoenberg’s retrospective criticism, it cannot have been intended for this song. A message both Tristan-esque and Nietzschean in words and music both warned and enticed: ‘Trinke Seele! trinke Einsamkeit! O gib acht! gib acht!’ Gansch seemed liberated by the greater musical possibilities, each song conceived in collaboration with Martineau with remarkable attention to detail, out of which was formed a singular whole. ‘Die Nachtigall’ took shape and indeed flight from its immanent growth in expressive range, reaching an ecstatic vocal conclusion such as to have Martineau’s piano epilogue bathed in Bergian afterglow.  The little red fire (‘Feuerlein rot’) of ‘Im Zimmer’ fairly crackled before our ears, vocal and piano parts alike subtly suggestive of image and import. A richly voluptuous ‘Liebesode’ became breathless in more than one sense, serving aptly as prelude to ‘Sommertage’, whose ‘image after image comes to you and quite fills you’. 

A short break of a minute or two was just the thing to prepare for the different world again of Des Knaben Wunderhorn, its naïveté never without a suspicion of knowing, alienation its lot, its tragedy, but also its attraction. Gansch captured to a tee the humour of Mahler’s absurdist neo-Bachian melismata in ‘Wer hat dies Liedlein erdacht?’ Mahler should never, arguably can never, be read on one level. ‘Das irdische Leben’ was well characterised, its horror all the truer for the lack of hysteria. Kindertotenlieder already seemed close. A sardonic account of ‘Ablösung im Sommer’, the piano properly played straight, prepared the way for the ambiguities of ‘Scheiden und Meiden’ and a dream-like, hallucinatory ‘Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen’, its wan, deathly piano prelude as Mahlerian as any orchestra. After that, ‘Rheinlegendchen’ offered necessary relief prior to the epiphanic mysteries of ‘Das himmlische Leben’, heard far more frequently in its orchestral guise as final movement to the Fourth Symphony. Already in its opening stanza, the subtle range of Gansch’s vocal colours suggested nothing was quite so simple as it might seem. Childhood, after all, is always an adult idea. ‘Sankt Martha die Köchin muss sein!’ seemed as strange a revelation as ever, yet one could not but nod assent, both to the claim and to Mahler’s path to transcendence. For an encore, we heard ‘Hans und Grete’, again apparently simple, yet with much beneath the surface. Gansch’s closing smile, very much part of the performance, encapsulated what we had just heard.

Röschmann/Martineau - Schumann, Wolf, and Brahms, 10 September 2018

Wigmore Hall

Schumann: Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, op.135

Wolf: Mörike-Lieder: ‘An eine Äolsharfe’, ‘Das verlassene Mägdlein’, ‘Erstes Liebeslied eines Mädchens’, ‘Begegnung’, ‘Denk es, o Seele!’, ‘Auf ein altes Bild’, ‘Verborgenheit’

Brahms: Alte Liebe, op.72 no.1, Auf dem Kirchhofe, op.105 no.4, Der Tod, das ist die kühle Nacht, op.96 no.1, Unbewegte laue Luft, op.57 no.8, Liebestreu, op.3 no.1, Meine Liebe ist grün, op.63 no.5, Wir wandelten, op.96 no.2, Nachtigall, op.97 no.1, Von ewiger Liebe, op.43 no.1

Dorothea Röschmann (soprano)

Malcolm Martineau (piano)

One should not judge a performance by its audience, but spying Mitsuko Uchida in the audience is unlikely ever to prove a negative sign. It certainly did not here, in a wonderfully involving recital of songs by Schumannn, Wolf, and Brahms from Dorothea Röschmann and Malcolm Martineau. The patent sincerity of Röschmann’s singing – not to imply anything other than sincerity about Martineau’s! – was evident from the very first of the late Gedichte der Königin Maria Stuart, ‘Abschied von Frankreich’. Its deceptive simplicity was not exactly mirrored but perhaps paralleled in the figures almost, yet never quite, remembered from the piano music in Martineau’s part. These are not quite fragments, late though they may be; nor are they anything like so disturbing as the Gesänge der Frühe, op.133, for piano solo, which I find almost impossible to listen to. There is certainly something suggestive of the fragment too them, though, not least as a reaction to a bare-bones simplicity (sometimes) that itself proves suggestive of a (mis)remembered Bach as chorale writer. Certainly the tension evoked between ritual and expression in ‘Nach der Geburt ihres Sohnes’ brought Schumann’s Leipzig predecessor to mind, as did the rock-solid, continiuo-like piano part to the closing ‘Gebet’. If that were the church as rock of St Peter, Röschmann suggested a more emotional disciple: imploring, trustful, and in the last place visibly, audibly moved, just as she had been in the preceding ‘Abschied von der Welt’. Wagner, the only one of these three to have been born in Leipzig, came to mind not only in the vocal line, but also in the arioso-like piano writing – at least in this performance – of ‘An die Königin Elisabeth’, the colour of Röschmann’s lower range both lacerating and comforting; ‘Doch des Schicksals Walten zerriesst das Segel oft, dem wir vertraut.’

An expansive, almost Straussian vocal account of ‘An eine Äolsharfe’ opened the selection from Wolf’s Mörike-Lieder. Repetitions of the words ‘wie süss’ were operatic in the best sense, at least so far as Lieder-singing is concerned: alert to a drama that needed no stage. Ghosts of Schubert and Wagner – composers far too little considered together – haunted ‘Das verlassene Mägdlein’; indeed, Schoenberg, in one of his many synthetic not-quite-reconciliations came to mind too. Intervals proved properly generative, Webern within an aural stone’s throw. Relief and instability characterised ‘Erstes Liebeslied eines Mädchens’. Each song was unquestionably considered on its own terms, yet formed part of a programme too: following on, contrasting, questioning. And so, when the opening of ‘Denk es, o Seele!’ seemed reminiscent of ‘Das verlassene Mägdlein’, it was equally important for it to proceed as it did, very much in its own way, albeit mediated by the experience so far. ‘Verborgenheit’ offered a dark, almost operatic climax to the set that yet offered something of necessary or at least anticipated reconciliation: again not entirely unlike Schoenberg.

The second half was given to Brahms. Alte Liebe’s simplicity was apparent – until one listened to the piano harmony: never exaggerated, yet ever so telling. A noticeably later (1888 to 1876) Auf dem Kirchhofe suggested that special vehemence one often hears in the late piano pieces, its Bach allusion poignant on many levels; we were reminded once again just how much the entire German musical tradition owes to the Lutheran chorale. Röschmann’s evocation of life surging through the veins as the moment of transformation in Unbewegte laue Luft suggested, not inappropriately, the ‘namenlose Freude’ of Fidelio, whilst the early Liebestreu (1853) sounded intriguingly close to a recollection of Senta’s Ballad that yet ended in soft-spoken (sung) tragedy. Meine Liebe ist grün and Wir wandelten both did – and expanded upon – what their titles and poems suggested, both seemingly preparing for the moments of frozen time experienced in Nachtigall. A final Von ewiger Liebe seemed to want to return to the earlier world of Schumann, yet could not, exploring instead its own, beautifully judged melancholic passion: echt-Brahms. And yet, was that just a hint of proto-Mahlerian irony? Or was that just me? We were left to wonder – and indeed to desire more, which we received in two finely contrasted encores: Schumann’s Die Lotosblume, in which a similar tension between the ironic (Heine) and the sincere (Schumann) was to be heard, and reconciliatory Liszt, in the guise of Es muss ein Wunderbares sein.

Salzburg Festival (1) – Boesch/Martineau: Schubert, Mahler, and Krenek, 20 August 2018

Grosser Saal, Mozarteum

Schubert: Der Wanderer, D 649; Der Wanderer an den Mond, D 870; An den Mond, SD 259

Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
Krenek: Reisebuch aus den österrichischen Alpen, op.62


Florian Boesch (baritone)
Malcolm Martineau (piano)

There are many ways to wander, not least with one foot in the soil of German Romanticism. Many of us will think of the paintings of Friedrich – now, alas, almost too well known – and of Wotan in Siegfried. Need there be such metaphysical implications? Perhaps, perhaps not; it would be difficult to avoid them completely in a Liederabend. That is not to say, however, that they might not be played with, questioned, even satirised. As Florian Boesch admits, in a booklet interview, it is not easy to know how to programme Ernst Krenek’s Reisebuch aus den österrichischen Alpen. Schubert and Mahler here offered complementary, even dialectical standpoints from which to approach Krenek’s song-cycle.

 

The three opening Schubert songs were well chosen, even their titles making the connection clear: Der Wanderer, Der Wanderer an den Mond, and An den Mond. Boesch’s crystal clear diction, never an end in itself but a crucial guide to meaning, was apparent from the start. The different register chosen for the moon’s encouragement – ‘Folge true dem alten Gliese, wähler keine Heimat nicht’, or should that be discouragement? – made its point without exaggeration. Likewise the quiet ecstasy of ‘schein’, of appearance, of reflection, on ‘Seh’ ich mild im Widerscheine’ told us all we needed to know. Both Boesch and Malcolm Martineau, perhaps a little reticent in these songs, used the form of Schubert’s second and third songs to chart a wandering of their own: similar yet different throughout their stanzas. Already, it was clear that this was to be a performance of a very ‘Austrian’ baritone, at times tenor-like, in the line of Wolfgang Holzmair, although certainly not merely to be identified with him.

 

Martineau turned far more interventionist – as, indeed, did Boesch – in Mahler’s Songs of a Wayfarer. Fair enough: there is no un-mediated Mahler, certainly not here. Sometimes, though, less is more, or at least it can be. I could not help but find the very heavy piano accents in ‘Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht’ a little much, perhaps also Boesch’s underlining of words. His heavy sarcasm in the following ‘Ging heut’ morgen über’s Feld’ ensured that what may sometimes be lost was not. At what price, though? Expressionistic anger, Wozzeck-like, made a powerful case for such an approach in ‘Ich hab’ ein glühend Messer’, although intonation sometimes went a little awry. Uneasy repose, in a very slow ‘Die zweu blauen Augen von meinem Schatz’ suggested a dark dreamworld indeed, responding perhaps to the Schubert of Winterreise, not least in the frozen quality to Martineau’s piano part.

 

Krenek’s cycle thus emerged, both as work and performance, as some sort of mediated response to those two extremes (extremes which, of course, retained something of each other within). The expectancy of the opening ‘Motiv’, together with its slightly doubting harmonies, nicely pointed by Martineau, set the scene – without, quite rightly, our yet knowing how it and its action would develop. As James Parsons put it in his 2010 Austrian Studies article on the work, Krenek is, to an extent at least, ‘reversing the associative connotations of the Lied as a medium suited to withdrawing from the cares of the world, and, in place of that, taking up the genre as the means by which to actively work through life’s larger concerns’. Which may, of course, as we heard here, entail dealing with issues of withdrawal; indeed, it almost certainly will. To follow such a song with ‘Verkehr’, a song playing with pictorialism and Neue Sachlichkeit just as it plays with the mountain railway that is its ostensible subject, takes us further – and so it did here, Boesch’s irony less exaggerated and in many ways more telling than in Mahler. Is ‘scenery’ lighter? Perhaps, as in the following ‘Kloster in den Alpen’, but there are echoes here of Romanticism; consciously or otherwise, Boesch and Martineau seemed to point – or at least I heard them doing so – to Schumann’s Im Rhein. Or is that a pointless diversion? ‘Abends dann beim Wein im Klosterkeller magst du nachdenken, was für ein sinnlos Leben du fuhrst.’ Schubert is the more obvious model, of course, and, I think, the more obvious focus of rebellion. In ‘Traurige Stunde’, we were asked to participate in an act of false or at least fallible remembrance, even before the explicit act thereof in ‘Unser Wein (Dem Andenken Franz Schuberts)’.

 

For memory is a strange thing. Its ambivalence and ambiguity had been prepared in the preceding ‘Regentag’, not least by further suggestion of musical ‘autonomy’ in the piano part. More than once such thoughts came to mind, unsettling and yet expanding ideas of what this music, these words, their alchemy (or not) might be ‘about’. A journey was underfoot, towards dodecaphony, through quasi-Schoenbergian procedures in ‘Auf und ab’, itself questioned by the grandeur of external display in the succeeding ‘Albenbewohner (Folkloristisches Potpourri)’. The post-expressionism of ‘Gewitter’, again not entirely unlike the Schoenberg of the 1920s, although certainly never to be confused with him, told us how gloriously untrue that song’s final major chord must be. If there were a decision (‘Entscheidung’), it seemed to relate to reinforcement of those ambiguities, ambivalences, autonomies. We citizens of nowhere, we rootless cosmopolitans know no home; we no longer want one. Or do we?

Samling 20th Anniversary Concert, 8 November 2016

Wigmore Hall

Britten – A Charm of Lullabies, op.41: ‘A Cradle Song’; ‘The Nurse’s Song’

Warlock – My Sweet Little Darling
Schubert – Wiegenlied, D 498
Ives – The Children’s Hour
Schumann – Lieder-Album für die Jugend, op.79: ‘Marienwürmchen’
Poulenc – La Courte Paille; nos.4-7
Schubert – Licht und Liebe, D 352
Liszt – Tre sonetti di Petrarca, S 270/1: Sonnets nos 104, 47
Quilter – Five Shakespeare Songs (set 2): ‘It was a lover and his lass’
Britten – The Foggy, Foggy Dew; Soldier, won’t you marry me?
Schubert – Schwanengesang, D 957: ‘Kriegers Ahnung’
Schumann – Der Soldat, op.40 no.3
Wolf – Der Soldat I and II
Fauré – Les Berceaux, op.23 no.1
Poulenc – Bleuet
Barber – I hear an army, op.10 no.3
Liza Lehmann – Nonsense Songs from ‘Alice in Wonderland’: ‘Fury said to a Mouse’
Bolcom – Twelve Cabaret Songs: ‘Amor’
Brahms – O wüsst ich doch den Weg zurück, op.63 no.8; Alte Liebe, op.72 no.1
Barber – The Secrets of the Old, op.13 no.2
Copland – Twelve Poems of Emily Dickinson: ‘Going to Heaven!’
Schubert – Nachstück, D 672; Der Tages Weihe, D 763

 

Kiandra Howarth (soprano)

Kathryn Rudge (mezzo-soprano)

David Butt Philip (tenor)

Benjamin Appl (baritone)

Andrew Foster-Williams (baritone)

James Baillieu (piano)

Ian Tindale (piano)

Malcolm Martineau (piano)

James Garnon (actor)

The Samling Artist Programme has nurtured the careers of many a young artist, both singers and pianists (or, if you will, accompanists), gathering them together (apparently, gathering, collective, even assembly are possible translations of the Norse ‘Samling’) with an array of senior artists. Part of that programme is an annual showcase at the Wigmore Hall. For its twentieth anniversary, Samling Artists from 2000 (Andrew Foster-Williams) to 2016 (Kiandra Howarth) took the stage, joined by Malcolm Martineau (one of those senior artists or ‘Leaders’) and the actor, James Garnon. Thomas Allen, Samling’s Patron was to have joined the assembled company, but flu put paid to that, and thus to an ensemble from Sullivan’s Trial by Jury. I cannot comment on every single song, but hope to give a flavour of what was on offer in this particular showcase.

The programme traced the ‘seven ages of man’, prefaced by Garnon’s engaging reading from As you like it’s ‘strange eventful history’. Two songs from Britten’s A Charm of Lullabies (Kathryn Rudge and James Baillieu) opened ‘Infancy’, Baillieu’s piano making much of the harmonic affinity of the Blake ‘Cradle Song’ with the world of The Rape of Lucretia, Rudge captivating in the a cappella opening of ‘The Nurse’s Song’. Her mezzo-soprano voice here and elsewhere proved both rich and variegated of tone. The post-Mozartian simplicity of Schubert’s Wiegenlied was well captured by Kiandra Howarth and Malcolm Martineau, paving the way for ‘Childhood’. Benjamin Appl seemed not to come truly into his own until later in the recital. Although Ives’s The Children’s Hour was beautifully sung, he missed a certain lightness of touch. Four songs from Poulenc’s La Courte paille were more successful. They were shared between Howarth and Rudge, the former seemingly relishing a more absurdist side, the latter more seductive.

 

When we reached the stage of ‘The Lover’, David Butt Philip joined Howarth and Ian Tindale for Schubert’s Licht und Liebe. Tindale proved equally alert rhythmically and harmonically. The ardent quality of Butt Philip’s singing carried into an unapologetically Italianate rendition of Liszt’s first Petrarch Sonnet. Vocal passion was matched in Baillieu’s piano playing of that and the second, for which Howarth returned, to give a similarly dramatic performance. I cannot claim to care much for the music of Roger Quilter, but Rudge and Appl gave a charming performance.

 

A welcome change of mood – Britten folksongs are really not for me – came after the interval with ‘The Soldier’. Following a reading from Henry IV, Part I, Andrew Foster-Williams was heard for the first time, with Baillieu, in Kriegers Ahnung. A greater depth was immediately announced, carried into an especially commanding performance (now with Tindale) of Schumann’s Der Soldat, sadness and anger in compelling balance. Appl seemed much more at home in two soldier songs from Wolf’s Eichendorff-Lieder, using the words to excellent effect. Another highlight, not just of this section, but of the concert as a whole, came with the Rudge-Martineau performance of Fauré’s Les Berceaux, its sadness deeply felt. Honesty and integrity of feeling were equally apparent in Butt Philip’s Poulenc Bieuet. Stylish, never mawkish, he impressed just as much as he had in the very different music of Liszt. Much the same might be said of Foster-Williams, in Samuel Barber’s Joyce setting, I hear an army.

 

‘The Justice’ was missing the aforementioned Sullivan number, so was confined to a charmingly despatched Liza Lehmann song (Butt Philip/Tindale) and a cabaret song by William Bolcom: not my thing, I am afraid, although Howarth was very much in her element. Lugubrious Teutonophile that I am, I responded more warmly to ‘Old Age’ and Brahms. Foster-Williams and Bailliue gave an unexaggerated, deceptively straightforward performance of O wüßt ich doch den Weg zurück, Rudge and Martineau displaying depth to match that of the Fauré song in Alte Liebe. Rudge’s Barber song, The Secrets of the Old, captured the idiom perfectly: an equally fine performance, again well supported by Martineau. Much the same might be said of Howarth and Tindale’s sincere, aware Going to Heaven!  

 

Our revels now were ended, as the final Shakespeare reading reminded us. ‘Oblivion/Second Infancy’ opened with a fine performance of Schubert’s Nachtstück from Appl and Martineau. With beautiful vocal shading, Appl offered ample consolation for the misery of dotage. A heartfelt consecration of the day (Des Tages Weihes) concluded proceedings, with a well-matched performance form Howarth, Rudge, Butt Philip, Foster-Williams, and Baillieu. It seemed fitting to leave to the echoing strains of a Schubertiade.

Salzburg Festival (3): Karg/Martineau - Wolf, Montsalvatge, Duparc, Ravel, Hahn, Koechlin, Poulenc, and Barber, 11 August 2015

Mozarteum

Wolf – Kennst du das Land; Mir ward gesagst, du reisest in die Ferne; Mein Liebster singt am Haus im Mondenscheine; Mein Liebster ist so klein; Ich ließ mir sagen und mir ward erzählt; Ich hab’ in Penna einen Liebsten wohnen; Sagt, seid Ihr es, feiner Herr; In dem Schatten meiner Locken; Klinge, klinge, mein Pandero

Montsalvatge – Cinco canciones negras
Duparc – L’Invitation au voyage
Ravel – Cinq mélodie populaires grecques
Hahn – Lydé; Vile potabis; Tyndaris
Koechlin – Chanson d’Engaddi, op.56 no.1; La Chanson d’Ishak de Mossoul, op.84 no.8; Le Voyage, op.84 no.2
Poulenc – Voyage à Paris; Montparnasse; Hyde Park; Hôtel
Barber – Solitary hotel; Sure on this shining night

Christiane Karg (soprano)

Malcolm Martineau (piano) 

 

One of the most tiresome clichés of contemporary life, and the competition is stiff, is that of the ‘journey’. It perhaps reached its bathetic nadir – I say ‘perhaps’, since I cannot claim to have read the book – in the title of Tony Blair’s autobiography. (Yes, Tony: what really matters most about the invasion of Iraq is how it affected you and your ‘journey’.) How refreshing it was, then, to have an intelligently programmed recital which presented an array of different journeys, actual and anticipated, in excellent performances from Christiane Karg and Malcolm Martineau.

We began with Wolf and specifically with Goethe (not, one suspects, artists with whom our beloved ex-Prime Minister has spent much time). There was nothing of the warm up – how could there be? – to Kennst du das Land? Karg sang as if reaching out – not, I hasten to add, in the sense of a Blairite ‘journey’ – towards the land where lemons blossom, Martineau’s piano part offering Lisztian urgency. On the level of small detail – slightly lingering upon ‘Geliebter’, ‘glänzt’ whispered almost as Schwarzkopf were reborn – and the longer line, with all its increasing dramatic urgency, this seemed to me a model performance. Mir ward gesagt, du reisest in die Ferne, first of the Paul Heyse settings, sounded as continuation and foil in equal measure. The spirit of Chopin’s mazurka pervaded Mein Liebster singt am Haus im Mondenscheine, whilst performative wit, especially to the ending, brought smiles, inward and outward, in Mein Liebster ist so klein. Moving from Italy to Spain, Sagt, seid Ihr es, feiner Herr, sounded imbued with the spirit of the dance. Again, a knowing smile, visible and audible, characterised the final ‘Ach nein!’

Xavier Montsalvatge’s Cinco canciones negras proved a revelation to me: expressing the voice, it seemed, of a Catalan Poulenc. The habanera rhythm of the opening ‘Cuba dentro de un piano’ offers scope, fully realised, for rhythmic play with word endings. Karg and Martineau seemed equally in their element. Rhythmic flexibility and intriguingly ‘different’ harmonies were the order of the day in the ensuing ‘Rhythmus der Habanera’. Karg’s delicious pianissimo singing was the abiding memory of ‘Canción de cuna para dormer a un negrito’. The set reached a wonderfully lively conclusion in ‘Canto Negro’.

Duparc’s L’Invitation au voyage initiated a series of French songs in the second half, the performance striking just the right note of invitingly French post-Wagnerism. The varying moods of Ravel’s Cinq melodies populaires grecques were unfailingly captured, verbal detail impressively present yet unexaggerated. Piano rhythms were flexible where necessary, insistent where necessary. Reynaldo Hahn, I am afraid, is a composer to whom I am yet to respond; the three Etudes latines we heard seemed very well performed, but as music, I found them little more than pleasant. Charles Koechlin offered something far more interesting. Chanson d’Engaddi emerged very much with a personal ‘voice’, its spare quality leading one in, especially with such varied vocal colourings, to the Schoenbergian harmonies of La Chanson d’Ishak de Mossoul.

 

Poulenc is so often at his finest in song, and so he proved again here. Voyage à Paris plunged us immediately into a world of unmistakeably Parisian urbanity, Montparnasse offering a sad foil of solitude, hinting at the world of La Voix humaine: those harmonies, that tristesse… Hyde Park again made me smile: surely the point, whilst the passing time – a Parisian Marschallin, perhaps – of Hôtel cast its own melancholy spell. The programme concluded with two songs by Samuel Barber. Karg’s vocal shading and her understated sadness had Solitary Hotel linger in the memory for some time.

Murray/Müller-Brachmann/Martineau - Brahms, 13 January 2013

Wigmore Hall

Heimkehr, op.7 no.6; In der Fremde, op.3 no.5; Der Überlaufer; Liebestreu, op.3 no.1; Ständchen, op.14 no.7; An eine Äolsharfe, op.19 no.5; Der Gang zum Liebchen, op.48 no.1; Wehe, so willst du mich wieder, op.32 no.5; Wie bist du, meine Königin, op.32 no.9; Keinen hat es noch gereut, op.33 no.1; Sind es Schmerzen, op.33 no.3; Am Sonntag Morgen, op.49 no.1; Die Mainacht, op.43 no.2; An die Nachtigall, op.46 no.4; Von ewiger Liebe, op.43 no.1; Auf dem See, op.59 no.2; Regenlied, op.59 no.3; Ach, wende diesen Blick, op.57 no.4; Meine Liebe ist grün, op.63 no.5; Therese, op.86 no.1; Mit vierzig Jahren, op.94 no.1; Sapphische Ode, op.94 no.4; Kein Haus, keine Heimat, op.94 no.5; Schön war, das ich dir weihte, op.95 no.7; Auf dem Kirchhofe, op.105 no.4; Mädchenlied, op.107 no5; Wie komm’ ich den zur Tür herein; So wünsch’ ich ihr ein’ gute Nacht; Schwesterlein; Denn es gehet dem Menschen wie dem Vieh, op.121 no.1; Wenn ich mit Menschen- und mit mit Engelzungen redete, op.121 no.4

Ann Murray (mezzo-soprano)

Hanno Müller-Brachmann (bass-baritone)

Malcolm Martineau (piano)

 

I am ashamed to say that I was unaware of this series, ‘Songlives’, the brainchild of Malcolm Martineau, until the present concert. Each instalment attempts to show the development of a song-composer throughout the entirety of his career. With Brahms, this worked very well. Indeed, though much was, of course, missing, there was little or no sense of glaring omission, and a proper sense of narrative progression, not least since the programme was organised under six headings: ‘The early years,’ ‘Neue Bahnen’, ‘First Maturity’, ‘Established in Vienna’, ‘The last twenty years’, and ‘At the end’. Martineau was joined by two fine artists: Hanno Müller-Brachmann and, replacing Bernada Fink, Ann Murray. The former was on typically rich-voiced form, whilst the latter’s patent sincerity and generosity of delivery amply compensated for any loss of vocal bloom.

 

The recital opened with Heimkehr, Brahms’s first extant song. (Notoriously self-critical, Brahms destroyed a frightening number of earlier and indeed later works.) Though published in 1854, it was composed in 1851, and, according to Susan Youens’s informative booklet note, is only twenty-one bars long. Though the predominant mood is of agitation, Müller-Brachmann nevertheless achieved considerable subtlety of shading. The next song, an Eichendorff setting, In der Fremde, fell to Murray, the singers alternating for quite a while. A sense of Heimweh offered welcome contrast with the first song; likewise the grave simplicity of the following Der Überlaufer and the dark Romanticism of Liebestreu. Opening the second section, Müller-Brachmann’s – and Martineau’s – Ständchen proved nicely anticipatory, even though we all knew and/or sensed that hopes would be dashed. Brahms himself was the star of An eine Äolfsharfe, the ravishing harmony on ‘melodische Klage’ – a melodious lament indeed – quite taking one’s breath away, though Martineau should of course also take credit for its communication. The post-Schubertian quality of Der Gang zum Liebchen was well captured by Murray.

 

We then entered ‘First maturity’, allotted at first to Müller-Brachmann. The Platen setting, Wehe, so willst du mich wieder, was turbulent in mood yet benefited throughout from clarity of piano line. Müller-Brachmann’s melting vocal delivery of the Hafiz translation, Wie bist du, meine Köngin, was very much a high-point of the recital, bringing the odd tear to these eyes. Keinen hat es noch gereut was vividly pictorial, Tieck’s nimble steed (Roß) springing to life before our ears. The same poet’s Sind es Schmerzen received a setting and performance again haunted by the spirit of Schubert, albeit with typical Brahmsian ‘lateness’, a word that came to mind again and again, despite – or, on some occasions, even on account of – the strophic quality of a number of his songs. Murray’s Am Sonntag Morgen received a subtly ambiguous, subtly knowing performance: never overdone, but nevertheless aware. Die Mainacht was beautifully hushed, pregnant, with a brief vocal blooming upon the doves’ cooing. An die Nachtigall and Von ewiger Liebe were also Murray’s, the former benefiting especially from Martineau’s telling, unexaggerated delivery of piano syncopations, whilst the former offered a strange yet familiar marriage between tradition and alienated modernity that was very much Brahms’s own.

 

The singers shared ‘Established in Vienna’, following the interval, Murray opening with Auf dem See. Müller-Brachmann responded with Regenlied, not the text indicated in the programme, but Brahms’s op.59 no.3., from which he hauntingly quotes in the first violin sonata. The involved writing of Ach, wende diesen Blick, sounded very much of Brahms’s maturity, Murray’s Meine Liebe ist grün a touching pendant from Felix Schumann.

 

Murray’s Therese was the first from the ‘last twenty years’ group, followed by the anything-but-cheery Rückert Mit vierzig Jahren, Müller-Brachmann’s rich tone an especial boon upon such melancholy terrain. Murray’s Sapphische Ode not only charmed but moved; her Schön war, das ich dir weihte a plangent contrast with the brief fury of her partner’s Kein Haus, keine Heimat. High Romanticism, or rather Late High Romanticism, was once again the order of the day in Auf dem Kirchhofe, to which Murray’s Mädchenlied offered winning contrast. Both singers were employed in each of the three ensuing folksong settings: beautifully judged, with inevitable glances forward towards Mahler, despite the difference in style. Schwesterlein in particular emerged as decidedly ‘late’, an evocation of childhood that was haunted indeed. Müller-Brachmann’s two songs from the Vier ernste Gesänge were powerful yet restrained, Brahms’s apparently timeless archaism in reality anything but. Dark echoes of Ein deutsches Requiem led us to ultimate consolation – of sorts. Much the same could be said of the folksong and ‘lullaby’ encores with which this enlightening recital came to a close.  

Keenlyside/Martineau - Schoenberg, Eisler, Britten, Wolf, Schubert, and Brahms, 18 December 2013

Barbican Hall

Schoenberg – Erwartung, op.2 no.1

Eisler – Spruch 1939; Unter den grünen Pfefferbäumen, In den Hügeln wird Gold gefunden, Diese Stadt hat mich belehrt, Zwei Lieder nach Worten von Pascal, Erinnerung an Eichendorff und Schumann, Verfehlte Liebe, Spruch
Britten – Songs and Proverbs of William Blake
Wolf – Denk’ es, o Seele!, Um Mitternacht, Wie sollte ich heiter bleiben, Auf eine Christblume II, Blumengruss, Lied eines Verliebten
Schubert – Alinde, D 904, Der Wanderer, D 649, Herbstlied, D 502, Verklärung, D 59
Brahms – Verzogen, op.72 no.4, Über die Heide, op.86 no.4, Nachtigallen schwingen, op.6 no.6

Simon Keenlyside (baritone)

Malcolm Martineau (piano)

 

An excellent recital from Simon Keenlyside and Malcolm Martineau. A few, occasional technical fallibilities aside – fallibilities which, in the greater scheme of things, counted for very little – Keenlyside’s intelligence, musicality, and sincerity offered a wonderful partnership with Martineau’s unfailing mixture of the same. There was no question of the pianist merely ‘supporting’ the singer; this was, as any Lieder-recital must be, a true partnership.

 

Schoenberg’s ‘other’ Erwartung opened the recital. Its heady harmonic fantasy and already sophisticated version of developing variation marked it out unmistakeably as the composer’s work, hints of Zemlinsky notwithstanding. (The Dehmel text is another thing Schoenberg and Zemlinsky have in common.) It was a pity not to hear more from this most woefully neglected of Lieder composers – and composers more generally – but at least it was something. Schoenberg’s presence also offered a little context to Eisler, whose songs emerged as standing somewhere between the music of his teacher and that of Hindemith. That is not to say that they are derivative, for they are certainly not, but it is the sort of connection one’s mind tends to play when ‘placing’ music. The first and last songs were sung in English, the rest in German. Hearing Brecht’s Spruch 1939 in English brought home not only the impending conflict between Britain and Germany, but also the plight of German exiles, be their exile for racial or political reasons – or both. The piano postlude in Martineau’s hands evoked the persistent if now-distant world of Schoenberg’s op.11 Piano Pieces, whilst Unter den grünen Pfefferbäumen sounded more Berg-like. The hell of Hollywood in Diese Stadt hat mich belehrt was vividly conveyed by darker vocal and piano tone: ‘Paradies und Hölle können eine Stadt sein.’ If the two Pascal songs might sound closer to the world of Neue Sachlichkeit, then Eisler’s deep humanity soon seeped through. Erinnerung an Eichendorff und Schumann offered a suitably backward glance to German Romanticism, whilst continuing to look forward; there could be no retreat. The final Brecht proverb, again in English, provided a moving climax, which refused to conflate sentiment and sentimentality.

 

Clever programming led into another proverb, this time the first of Blake’s as set by Britten. Martineau revelled in the piano virtuosity. Throughout – and perhaps especially in ‘The Fly’ – one heard Britten’s delight as a great pianist in his instrument. The pity was that sometimes that display masked, on the composer’s part, a relative lack of formal sophistication; or rather, that it did not entirely mask such shortcomings. The devices to which Britten so easily – too easily? – succumbs, be they explicitly pictorial or more abstract, sounded too obvious following the underrated, understated example of Eisler. Blake’s anger and vision of course remained. And even when Keenlyside ran into a little difficulty, in A Poison Tree, his final stanza more than made up for the lapse with convincing vehemence, the composer’s dissonances sounding especially plangent in the following fourth proverb. Britten and Blake make rather odd bedfellows, but this was a committed performance, with Martineau’s piano wanderings splendidly creepy.

 

With Wolf, following the interval, we stood again on more elevated ground. The care taken with shading in the opening Denk’ es, o Seele! was exemplary, almost akin to a pattern of versicle and response. Um Mitternacht was imbued with the darkness of its titular midnight, but also perhaps with its hope, its opening up of possibilities. The second Auf eine Christblume song reminded us that Wolf’s harmonies are often but a stone’s throw from Schoenberg, whilst Schubertian echoes – impetuosity, forlorn hope, many aspects of harmony and rhythm – haunted the Lied eines Verliebten, providing a telling bridge to Schubert proper.

 

Alinde benefited from perfectly judged rhythm and disarming delivery: a textbook performance, as it were, followed by a rapt account of Der Wanderer. (Yes, I know, ‘rapt’ is overused, perhaps beyond the point of cliché, but it really seems the mot juste here.) Verklärung possessed due gravity – and yet, it moved. An echt-Brahmsian piano sound was immediately conjured up for Verzogen, Martineau offering just the right degree of harmonic and rhythmic turbulence, which carried over, albeit in different fashion, into Über die Heide, its darkness finely observed by both artists, yet never laboured. The ambiguity of Nachtigallen schwingen was just the ticket for what was anything but a crowd-pleasing conclusion. ‘Eine Blume seh ich, die nicht blühen will.’

 

Oliemans/Martineau - Mahler, Strauss, Duparc, and Debussy, 11 July 2012

Wigmore Hall

Mahler – Frühlingsmorgen
Hans und Grethe
Erinnerung
Scheiden und Meiden
Strauss – Traum durch die Dämmerung
Nachtgang
Befreit
Duparc – Chanson triste
L’Invitation au voyage
Extase
Le Galop
Debussy – Trois ballades de Villon
Mahler – Rückert-Lieder

This was my first encounter with baritone Thomas Oliemans, though certainly not with the indefatigable Malcolm Martineau.  Oliemans already has an impressive C.V., including Salzburg Festival debut in 2005 (Gonsalvo Fieschi in Die Gezeichneten) and recent debuts at Covent Garden, Strasbourg, and for Scottish Opera. He is clearly also an impressive recitalist, as this performance made clear.

In a wonderfully constructed programme, Mahler appeared as alpha and omega, the first set comprising songs from his twenties. Frühlingsmorgen immediately displayed a ready communicative gift that went beyond the excellent German one tends to expect from Dutch singers. Working with the language, getting beneath the skin of the song, is more important still. Martineau’s handling of the intricacies of the piano part was equally impressive. Erinnerung showed an intensity and darkness of the soul not hitherto experienced: a matter of the songs’ nature than the performances, Oliemans shading his response intelligently and movingly. Intimations of Kindertotenlieder surfaced in Schieden und Meiden, a Wunderhorn song, the hushed stillness of a child’s passing a telling contrast – at least apparently, and that ambiguity registered powerfully.

Differences between Mahler and Strauss were subtly rendered apparent rather than emphasised, which is just as it should be. Strauss’s different manner of sophistication – no naïveté here, secondary or otherwise – was combined with a more evident, or perhaps ‘traditional’, lyricism, though both composers are surely two of the highest ranking princes of Lieder. Raptness in performance of Traum durch die Dämmerung was so finely achieved in part because the song was so clearly conceived as a whole, with a true sense of slowly pursuing the dusk (Dämmerung) of the title. Being drawn into ‘ein blaues, mildes Licht’ at the end was accomplished with a near-heavenly vocal pianissimo. Nachtgang likewise showed a proper sense of a formal and emotional whole, even to the extent that, as ever when faced with religion or even the metaphysical, Strauss tends towards a materialistic emptiness, as in the likeness here to saint, ‘mild, mild und grsoss, rein wie die liebe Sonne’. Befreit did not initially soar quite as would be ideal with Strauss – it is arguably easier for sopranos to do so in any case – but the second stanza rectified matters.

The Duparc set showed Oliemans to have an equally impressive sense of French pronunciation and style. (What a glaring contrast with some of the singers in Covent Garden’s Les Troyens!) Chanson triste quite rightly benefited from a Wagnerian tinge to its lyricism: there are many more routes from Wagner than those to Mahler and Strauss, Tristan here intriguingly, deliciously apparent. Likewise, of course, the Baudelaire setting, L’Invitation au voyage, its music most definitely ‘luxe, calme, et volupté,’ from both artists concerned. The setting of the sun was ecstatic, but musically so, rather than a forced imposition upon the text; Liszt too came to mind. Tristan again reared its head in Extase, not least through Martineau’s handling of Duparc’s harmonic progressions. A slight Gallic distancing was nevertheless maintained. The ghosts of Liszt and Schubert (Erlkönig in both cases) haunted yet never overwhelmed Le Galop and its transportation, not merely physical, into ‘l’inconnu profond’.

Debussy’s Trois ballades de François Villon opened the second half. Perhaps Oliemans’s rolled ‘r’ was more Dutch in quality than French; otherwise, the performance continued to be stylistically impeccable. (Again, I could not help but draw a contrast with some of the Italianate horrors experienced on the Royal Opera’s stage recently.) Martineau showed himself fully equal to the exigencies of Debussy’s piano writing. A Pelléas-like, ‘parlant’ style, with added mediævalism, was the hallmark of the ‘Ballade que Villon feit a la request de sa mere pour prier Nostre-Dame’. That quality, which so readily degenerated in the hands of lesser successors, was in Debussy’s hands properly magical, heightened by touching, yet sparing use of the head-voice. Quiet ecstasy – ‘La joye avoir fais-noy haulte Déesse’ – was to be heard in the conclusion. The ‘Ballade des femmes de Paris’ was nicely dry, in more than one sense. Oliemans even summoned up an authentically French shrug during the catalogue of place names: ‘Ay-je beaucoup de lieux compris?’

Mahler returned with his Rückert-Lieder. ‘Liebst du um Schönheit’ had touching inwardness, though its more outward protestations fared less well, proving less ecstatic than would be ideal. ‘Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder’ was another example of fine navigation to a tricky piano part. ‘Um Mitternacht’: it is almost impossible to say something about the song that does not sound irredeeembaly clichéd, but its desolate stillness was movingly conveyed. Again, its more external protestations were somewhat less happy, intonation an occasional problem, at least until a truly resplendent final stanza, but the Innigkeit was spot on throughout. ‘Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft’ requires absolute command of the piano line; that it received, spun as if ok silken thread, which in a way it is.  Inwardness was very much the hallmark also of ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’, though an occasional tendency towards crooning should be resisted.

Morgen, an encore I had hoped for, returned us to Strauss, after which came an initially vehement and then lightly stylish Wolf Abschied, by turns Wagnerian and (Johann) Straussian. We may just have a future Amfortas here.

Susan Graham/Malcolm Martineau, 29 June 2012

Wigmore Hall

Purcell – The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation, Z 196
Berlioz – La mort d’Ophélie, op.18 no.11
Schubert – Heiß mich nicht reden, D 877/2
Schumann – So laßt mich scheinen, op.98a/9
Liszt – Mignons Lied, S 275
Tchaikovsky – None but the lonely heart, op.6 no.6
Duparc – Romance de Mignon
Wolf – Kennst du das Land
Joseph Horovitz – Lady Macbeth: A Scena
Poulenc – Fiançailles pour rire, op.101
Messager – L’Amour masqué: ‘J’ai deux amants’
Cole Porter – The Physician
Vernon Duke (arr. Roger Vignoles) – Ages Ago
Ben Moore – Sexy Lady


I recall vividly the first time I saw – and heard – Susan Graham. It was as Cherubino at the Salzburg Festival in 1996, my first visit to the festival and my first opera there. (I have from the time beaten myself up that I opted for Figaro rather than a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear Boulez conduct Moses und Aron, but anyway…) Graham stole the show, and I cannot remember a single occasion on which I have heard her since when she has disappointed. This Wigmore Hall recital, surveying various types of women and their troubles, presented no exception, even though, were one to be truly Beckmesser-ish, there were a couple of songs at least that played less obviously to her strengths.

Purcell’s The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation was a bold choice with which to open. Graham’s intensely dramatic, even operatic reading had no sense whatsoever of the warm-up, which was as well, given the difficulty of the coloratura the singer must despatch. But the words were relished equally, likewise their sound. Whether one thought the performance too ‘operatic’ would in good degree be a matter of personal taste, but Malcolm Martineau’s relative reticence made for a slightly unsatisfactory contrast; keyboard players such as Britten and Raymond Leppard have brought greater drama to Purcell. There was no such problem with Berlioz’s La mort d’Ophélie, and the slight beat in Graham’s voice – almost as if this were the warm-up – soon vanished. Both Graham and Martineau exhibited exemplary style; indeed, the piano part sounded especially limpid. Graham’s dramatic instincy was shown to good effect, without being overplayed, at the breaking of the bough and Ophelia’s consequent fall, ‘sa guirlande à la main’. And the delicate floating of the final ‘Ah’ was as noteworthy for its subtle inflections as, almost paradoxically, its unbroken line.

Goethe followed, with different ‘Mignon’ treatments. In Schubert’s Heiß mich nicht reden, Graham’s diction was most impressive, with clear communication of verbal meaning, though here and in Schumann’s So laßt mich scheinen, I felt – perhaps I am carping here – a certain lack of Innigkeit. I doubt that I should have wanted to hear an entire recital of German Romantic Lieder from her, but in the programming context, these two songs remained most welcome. Martineau’s unexaggerated impetuosity in the postlude to the Schumann song struck just the right note. Graham’s communicative skills were put to excellent use in Liszt’s setting of Kennst du das Land. Both musicians heightened the senses both of kinship to Wagner – though the Wagner we are talking about of course comes later – and of echt-Lisztian melodic bloom. Liszt’s truly ravishing harmonies were beautifully voiced by Martineau. Perhaps this came across more as a heartfelt aria than a Lied, but it was not necessarily the worse for that. Likewise the tendency towards opera heightened the drama of Tchaikovsky’s Nyet, tolko tot, kto znal. Duparc’s Romance de Mignon sounded not lit from behind, as in Debussy’s celebrate phrase concerning Parsifal, but illuminated from within: again, just the ticket. And Wolf’s Kennst du das Land opened with a greater sense of inwardness than had been apparent in the Schubert and Schumann songs. The Straussian glow Graham imparted to her line could not have been more welcome, though Martineau’s tone hardened at climaxes.

Having exchanged virginal white for vampish black during the interval, Graham gave us first Joseph Horovitz’s 1970 Lady Macbeth – A Scena. Skilfully written in its highly pictorial way, it remained derivative and obvious, even in such fine interpretative hands. It would have been as welcome to hear Graham simply recite Shakespeare’s text. Poulenc’s Fiançailles pour rire exhibited on both artists’ part an excellent refusal to sentimentalise. ‘Dans l’herbe’ provided a textbook case of using harmonies and their progression to dramatic ends, though shaping of melodic lines was just as impressive. The closing ‘Fleur’ was less light in tone, quite rightly, without a hint of the maudlin. Messager’s ‘J’ai deux amants’ from L’amour masqué  (1923) was a gift to Graham’s communicative skills in French and to her stage talent. Cole Porter’s The Physician and Vernon Duke’s Ages Ago were skilfully, winningly despatched, though I could not help but wish that we had been treated to something a little more substantial. Ben Moore’s Sexy Lady was written for Graham and wittily tells of the mezzo’s plight: all those trouser roles, latter-day competition from counter-tenors as well. It was an apt way to close the recital, though a couple of encores were to come, and took me back to that first encounter with Graham as Cherubino.

Maltman/Martineau recital, Wigmore Hall, 11 April 2011

Wigmore Hall

Fauré – Cinq mélodies ‘de Venise’, op.58
Schumann – Zwei Venetianische Lieder, op.25/17 and 18
Schubert – Gondelfahrer, D 808
Mendelssohn – Venetianisches Gondellied, op.57 no.5
Hahn – Venezia: Chansons en dialecte vénetien
Schubert – L’incanto degli occhi, D 902/1
Il traditor deluso, D 902/2
Il modo di prender moglie, S 902/3
Du bist die Ruh, D 776
Lachen und Weinen, D 777
Sei mir gegrüßt, D 741
Mahler – Rückert Lieder

Christopher Maltman (baritone)
Malcolm Martineau (piano)

This recital, I am afraid, turned out to be rather less than the sum of its parts, lesser parts somewhat dragging down the rest. Malcolm Martineau proved a dependable pianist, often more than that. Christopher Maltman was generally an engaging soloist, though there were a few too many intonational problems to be able to disregard them as occasional slips. Nevertheless, the programme was the greater problem, not least in that we appeared to have two smaller recitals joined together; one pertained to impressions of Venice, the other to songs with texts by Friedrich Rückert, with Schubert’s Italian Metastasio settings offering a not entirely convincing bridge. Luca Pisaroni had recently employed those very same Schubert songs in a Wigmore Hall recital that was far more coherent as a programme – and often better sung too.

Fauré opened the recital with his five Verlaine settings, ‘de Venise’. Much of this composer’s output I stubbornly fail to ‘get’; others talk of his subtlety where I tend to find blandness. Popular favourites such as the Requiem and the incidental music to Pelléas et Mélisande continue to offer greater interest; perhaps I am destined forever, or at least for a while longer, to remain uninitiated. To be fair, not everything sounded bland here: the fourth song, ‘A Clymène’ certainly offered stranger harmonies, though I could not really understand them or where they were going, and they sounded a good deal stranger when Maltman’s tuning slipped. Moreover, Martineau’s evocation of the mandolin in the opening song that bears the instruments name was quite magical in its way; he also captured very well the (slightly) fragrant nonchalance of 'C’est l’éxtase', though Fauré seems to have a different understanding of ecstasy from mine. Maltman’s French was better than that of many, though word endings were not always perfectly sounded: what a difficult language this is for singers! The baritone also brought a fine sustained line to these mélodies, especially to 'En sourdine', whose closing nightingale song benefited from a touching use of head voice (an effect that was perhaps employed a little too readily in many of the songs to come).

Four gondoliers’ songs followed: two from Schumann, one from Schubert, and one from Mendelssohn. The Schumann songs proved a highlight to the recital, Maltman immediately sounding more at home with the Lieder-style, and not just in terms of language. From the first setting (both texts are by Thomas Moore, translated by Ferdinand Freiligrath), the beautifully shaded repetitions of ‘Leis’’ in the first stanza and ‘sacht!’ in the second could hardly have been better accomplished. Martineau’s command of rhythm securely underpinned the first, whilst the charming, almost Schubertian – in Taubenpost mode – manner of the second delighted. Mendelssohn’s Venetianisches Gondellied (again Moore-Freiligrath) bewitched with its barcarolle rhythm and evocative minor-mode harmonies whose implications extend further beyond the merely pictorial than one might expect. The better of Mendelssohn’s songs are better than many realise.

Reynaldo Hahn’s six songs in Venetian dialect were frankly tedious. Again, the subtleties of which some speak quite passed me by – and whilst I suspect that with Fauré, a lack of receptiveness on my part is a factor, I simply cannot imagine what might be of interest here to anyone. Gerald Larner’s programme note comparison with Poulenc seemed to me wide of the mark, to say the least. The opening ‘Sopra l’acqua indormenzada’ brought from Maltman a more operatic delivery, akin to a gondolier regaling his tourists. At least ‘La Biondina in gondoleta’ and ‘Che pecà!’ are less emoting, though the former seems merely bland – and prolonged. The latter has a jaunty rhythm in the piano interludes, of which Martineau made the most, and benefited from Maltman’s forthright, highly masculine tone, though he missed his first entry and had to re-start the song. A ringing final ‘ciel’ in the final song, ‘La primavera’, might have delighted devotees, but I was ready for the interval bar.

Schubert’s Metastasio settings opened the second half. ‘L’incanto degli occhi’ benefited from lightness of touch on the part of both artists, though the contrasting section was perhaps taken a little too operatically by Maltman. Certainly Pisaroni in the aforementioned recital had offered something more suggestive, less blatant. Richly-coloured accompagnato was evoked in the recitative section of ‘Il traditor deluso’; Martineau even managed to make the piano part to the aria sound as if it were a piano reduction from an orchestral original. High (melo-)drama marked Maltman’s once again operatic delivery. If not Mozart, then at least Rossini was pleasingly evoked in the buffo tone of ‘Il modo di prender moglie’.

Du bist die Ruh, the first of the three Schubert Rückert settings selected, received a rapt performance, along with the Schumann songs, perhaps the finest of the evening, Martineau’s piano part heart-rendingly limpid, Maltman using words as well as notes to touch. That magical final-stanza modulation truly opened up new vistas, setting an apt precedent for Mahler. The account of Sei mir gegrüßt was to be commended for not playing to the gallery, but I wondered if it was just a little too low-key.

If Maltman had arguably used the head voice to touch a little too much, it sounded apt indeed in Mahler’s ‘Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft,’ the first of his Rückert-Lieder. It finely matched the weaving of harmonic magic in the piano, though later on insecurities of tuning slightly marred the performance: I wondered whether the tessitura was less than ideal for Maltman’s voice. There was nevertheless just the right sense of wonder to be heard: I was put in mind of the ‘Forest Murmurs’ from Siegfried. Intonation again proved variable in ‘Blicke mir nicht in die Lieder!’ but there was a proper sense of something darker than a mere time of day being at stake in ‘Um Mitternacht’: a true midnight desolation of the soul. Here, though, whilst I had tried my best not to do so, I could not help but miss Mahler’s orchestra. Maltman showed a creditable willingness to harshen his tone where necessary, for instance when speaking of man’s afflictions, forsaking mere beauty. ‘Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen’ again made one realise what one was missing in orchestral terms: not Martineau’s fault, but in what might seem the quintessence in miniature of Mahler’s variegated orchestral writing, the piano inevitably seems second choice. However, the stillness of the final stanza was judged finely indeed. To offer arias from Verdi’s I due Foscari and Amilcare Ponchielli’s La Gioconda might have fitted the ‘Venetian’ theme but seemed jarring at best after Mahler.