thu 28/03/2024

Lieder

Zauberland, Linbury Theatre review - an adaptation that adds much and gains nothing

Dichterliebe is a song-cycle full of gaps, silences, absences. Where is the piano at the start of “Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet” when the voice enters first and so startlingly, ungrammatically alone? Where is the voice during the long piano postlude...

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Winterreise, Gerhaher, Huber, Wigmore Hall review - wintry beauty

As Wigmore Hall audiences really ought to know, silence can be golden. Especially at the close of Schubert’s Winterreise, as the uncanny drone-like fifths of the hurdy-gurdy in “Der Leiermann” fade away into – well, whatever state of mind the singer...

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Alice Coote, Christian Blackshaw, Wigmore Hall review – deep feeling and high drama

In the recital world, so it sometimes seems, no good deed ever goes unpunished. Like Ian Bostridge (another singer who tries to reinvigorate an often rigid format), Alice Coote often has to fend off brickbats whenever she inject the drama of new...

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Gerald Finley, Julius Drake, Middle Temple Hall review - sublimity in 18 serious songs

Earth stood hard as iron in parts of this awe-inspiring recital from a true song partnership, but theirs was an autumnal odyssey, not a winter journey. For all their preoccupation with death and occasionally desolation, neither Schubert at 31, in...

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Ian Bostridge, Thomas Adès, Wigmore Hall review - haunting, brutal Schubert

Winterreise brings out the best from Ian Bostridge, and the worst. His dedication to understanding and communicating its complex and harrowing text is everywhere apparent, and this was an emotionally draining evening. But his style of delivery has...

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Lucy Crowe, Anna Tilbrook, Wigmore Hall review - the eternal and ephemeral feminine

When you have 21 women to present in song, but only a couple among the 14 poets and none to represent them out of the 15 composers idolising or giving them a voice, you need two strong defenders of their sex at the helm. Lucy Crowe and Anna Tilbrook...

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Pianist Christopher Glynn on Schubert in English: 'this new translation never walks on stilts'

The idea for a new translation of Schubert's Winterreise came from an old recording. Harry Plunket Greene was nearly 70 (and nearly voiceless) when he entered the studio in 1934 and sang "Der Leiermann," the final song of the cycle, in English (as "...

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Matthias Goerne, Seong-Jin Cho, Wigmore Hall review - slow and slower Strauss

Matthias Goerne has an exceptional ability to sustain evenness and legato through a vocal line. His breath control and his tone production are things to be marvelled at. He is able to function at impossibly slow tempi, and to make an audience hold...

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Kaufmann, Damrau, Deutsch, Barbican review - bliss, if only you closed your eyes

Schubert’s winter wanderer had Wilhelm Muller to voice his despair, while Schumann’s poet-in-love had Heinrich Heine. The lovers of Hugo Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch must make do with only the words of anonymous Italian authors, albeit dressed up...

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Louise Alder, James Baillieu, Wigmore Hall review - sensual heat thaws a winter's evening

Rapture, ecstasy, ardour, and a few cheeky fumbles in the bushes – Louise Alder and James Baillieu’s Wigmore recital promised “Chants d’amour” and delivered amply, giving us love in all its bewildering, technicolour variety. From the heady eroticism...

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Schumann Street, Spitalfields Festival review - illumination on a winter's night

An icy, wet wind snuck under the door of house number 8 in Fournier Street, where Uri Caine, bundled in coat and woolly hat, conjured Schumann’s darkly powerful "Im Rhein". Beside him, perched on a weaver’s stool, was improvising legend Phil Minton...

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Florian Boesch, Justus Zeyen, Wigmore Hall review - power, intimacy and atmosphere

Florian Boesch is a big man. He’s tall, stocky, and with his bald head and stubble could seem more like a gangster than a Lieder singer. His voice is beautiful, but it matches his appearance – big, weighty and imposing. He has subtlety too, though...

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