Tutored tasting
Fifth Oxford Lieder Festival, 13 to 28 October 2006
The Oxford Lieder Festival, now in its fifth year, continues to grow in ambition under the dynamic inspiration of its founder and Artistic Director, Sholto Kynoch. This year there was a distinct pedagogical air to the event. In addition to the programme of recitals covering a wide range of the song repertoire, given by singers from all career stages, there were youth events, three master classes for advanced students and a final, ‘Singing for All’, workshop for adults. Each evening concert was introduced by a pre-concert talk, introducing us to some of the works to be performed, which supplemented the authoritative full and detailed notes in the Festival Programme, the work of Richard Stokes and others. I find it impossible to resist describing the Festival with an oenophile analogy. It was two weeks of vintage wine tasting and enjoyment, from the Beaujolais Nouveau of sixth formers to the Grand Cru of the opening concert, with the master classes providing tutored tastings of young wine and the pre-concert talks as tasting notes.
The Festival opened with children from Botley and from Bayards Hill Primary Schools presenting the results of workshops held during the preceding week. On the second day a group of five sixth formers, students of singing at local schools, were coached by Susan Young and Sholto Kynoch. It was fascinating to hear these talented, though untrained, voices responding to the tutors, showing remarkable maturity of interpretation.
The opening concert was given by Dame Felicity Lott with the pianist Maciej Pikulski. It was held in St Aldate’s Church (a concert venue new to me) which has a pleasant ambience and a clear acoustic but with the distraction of traffic noise and the tolling of Great Tom. A wall-hanging behind the piano proclaimed ‘Glory to God - The Heavenly Heights’. The programme was craftily composed to illustrate German romanticism (Schumann and Strauss), Gallic cynicism (Hahn, Yvain, Messager) and Anglo-Saxon wit, albeit a little dated (Noel Coward). One could not resist wondering what the Almighty made of some of the lyrics! The singer has lost none of her power to entrance since we heard her in Oxford in La Voix Humaine with Glyndebourne touring in 1977 – and that’s twenty-nine years ago! She completely captivated the audience with this varied programme, particularly the late Schumann lieder and the group of increasingly risqué French songs. Her pianist was superb, with utmost respect for the style of the composer - in the Schumann, his warm legato melodic line contrasting with the depiction of tears, rain, the dew.
Sophie Daneman is among many singers these days who have double careers combining eighteenth century opera with nineteenth century lieder. She could have brought more of the eighteenth century to her interpretation of the three uncomplicated Haydn, Anne Hunter settings which opened her programme. Her next group, of Schumann songs, sung beautifully enough, had to stand comparison with Lott the evening before – unfair. There followed ten songs from Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch sung with great charm and greater exuberance. One felt it was only the playing of Julius Drake, her pianist, which kept things under control. What tremendous support this pianist gives to his singers! New to me, a highlight of the concert was the sympathetic rendering of Richard Rodney Bennett’s Garland for Marjory Fleming who wrote the poems just before her death, aged eight, in 1811 – apart, that is, from Cole Porter’s grisly tale of a socially ambitious oyster, sung as an encore.
The third evening provided a rare opportunity to hear the whole of the Italienisches Liederbuch, as intended by the composer – and what a fantastic performance! It was given by three young musicians, recent graduates of the Royal Academy of Music, Lucy Crowe (soprano, a late substitute), William Berger (baritone) and John Reid (piano). The forty-six verses by Paul Heyse, based on Italian originals exploring every aspect of relations between men and women, are divided equally between the male and the female voice. Crowe, with beautiful voice, lived every moment of her songs, particularly effective in the more light-hearted numbers. Berger, more reticent and subtle in gesture, sang with glorious power and accuracy. The pianist played with complete assurance his sometimes fiendishly difficult part, providing well-judged continuity in a totally integrated performance. Marvellous!
The Ukrainian born baritone Vassily Savenko has a voice five times the size of the Holywell Music Room! Inevitably he had to scale it down to fit. His programme gave a well-chosen overview of the beauty of Russian song from Tchaikowski to Shostakovich (admirably introduced pre-concert by Phillip Bullock). Each song was persuasively sung giving us a real desire to learn more of this little-known repertoire and to hear this singer in more spacious surroundings. The following evening introduced us to a sensational newly emerging Swedish singer, Anna Grevelius, with a wonderful voice - a wide range from dark velvety lower register to thrilling top notes – and the personality to support it. She sang Greig, convincing us that he is up there with the top lieder composers, and other Scandinavian songs. Kynoch, at the piano, removed any fears that the heavy burden of artistic direction might have affected his concentration.
I must confess that it was the pianist, Graham Johnson (Jesus College Visiting Artist), who drew me to the next concert: but the singers, Austrian Daniela Lehner and New Zealander Jared Holt, proved worthy of his art. The programme was of solos and duets by Beethoven, Schumann and Cornelius and a brief tour d’horizon of French chanson by the baritone. Lehner has a beautiful voice and a very mature approach for her years; it was a revealing delight to hear her native voice among all the non-germanophone singers heard at the Festival. A cloud was the late cancellation by John Mark Ainsley due to sing Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Kerner Lieder; the silver lining was a chance to hear the 2006 Kathleen Ferrier award winner Elizabeth Watts with Roger Vignoles. It was also a chance to hear a set of songs by Debussy, underrepresented (as was Fauré) in such a festival but the singer came into her own with the late romantics Rachmaninov and Richard Strauss. She has the makings of a great dramatic soprano.
Four recitals, Lunch with Schumann, in association with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, featured his song cycles. The first, given by Rowan Hellier (mezzo) with the pianist Jonathan Beatty was disappointing. It was soon apparent, alas, that she was completely out of her emotional depth in Frauenliebe und Leben. She came much more to life in three Britten Cabaret Songs that completed the programme; the title of the first, ‘Teach me the truth about love’ could not have been more apposite. The second recital, Liederkreis, Op.24, with Britten and Vaughan Williams was given by Maciek O’Shea with Jennie-Helen Moston (piano). This singer has gone from strength to strength since we heard him in the first Oxford Lieder Festival in 2002. The same can be said of two other singers who have grown in maturity during their association with Oxford Lieder since its inception. Jasia Julia Nielsen sang Wolf, Mahler and Scandinavian songs at a ‘Rush Hour’ concert which packed the Church of St Michael at the North Gate. Susan Young, in her recital, performed delightfully songs of women poets with a particularly sensitive pianist in Iain Farrington, a quality which enhanced a world-première Festival commission – Three Emily Dickinson Songs - by twenty-year-old Hugo Brunt. The third Schumann lunch, devoted to Myrten, Robert’s wedding gift to Clara, introduced us to an exceptional Austrian baritone, Lukas Kargl, whose performance, supported by the wonderfully expressive accompaniment of Marc Verter, moved some of the audience to tears. Clara Hendrick sang the feminine songs sweetly enough.
A second rush hour concert gave us more Scandinavian songs, Stenhammer (worth an airing) and Nielsen (more so), and Vaughan Williams from yet another very fine baritone Håkan Ekenäs with Peter Møllerhøj (piano), particularly thrilling in Songs of Travel. This was followed by an enjoyably relaxing concert (after the intensity of all the lieder) of solos, duets and quartets given in the Cathedral by Young, Nielsen, O’Shea and the tenor Andrew Tortise with Kynoch, though it never really caught fire. Cathedral temperature too low?
The climactic concert of the Festival was a performance of Schubert’s Winterreise by tenor James Gilchrist and Julius Drake, which packed the Holywell Music Room with a real sense of occasion. It was brilliantly introduced by an enlightening pre-concert talk by Roderick Swanston who taught us to listen to the piano, advice which enhanced the appreciation of the performance as a whole. The performance was an emotionally charged experience from the first note to the last with complete unity of singer and pianist. The style of both performers was characterised by an enormous dynamic range from the sweetest pianissimo to an unforced fortissimo with great subtlety of gradation in between. The performers, voice and piano, the composer, the poet, Wilhelm Müller, and, not to be forgotten, the acoustic of the Holywell Music Room all contributed to a truly memorable evening.
Susan Gritton and Eugene Asti proved a worthy choice to give the final concert. They performed Mozart, Wolf, Schumann, Britten and Poulenc. Their mature musicality in songs from Italienische Liederbuch contrasted with the equally valid ebullience of Daneman and Drake and youthful sincerity of Crowe, Berger and Reid. Their high point was the sublime interpretation of Schumann’s late Op. 90, settings of poems by Lenau, sung with beautifully controlled melodic line, the piano in perfect sympathy.
This review has, with justification, exhausted my thesaurus of superlatives. Asked to select the primus inter pares (Winterreise is hors concours), I would find it impossible to choose between Crowe, Berger and Reid in the Italian Lieder Book, and the Swedish Anna Grevelius.
Why was this Festival not lauded in the national and local press?
28 October 2006
Fifth Oxford Lieder Festival, 13 to 28 October 2006
The Oxford Lieder Festival, now in its fifth year, continues to grow in ambition under the dynamic inspiration of its founder and Artistic Director, Sholto Kynoch. This year there was a distinct pedagogical air to the event. In addition to the programme of recitals covering a wide range of the song repertoire, given by singers from all career stages, there were youth events, three master classes for advanced students and a final, ‘Singing for All’, workshop for adults. Each evening concert was introduced by a pre-concert talk, introducing us to some of the works to be performed, which supplemented the authoritative full and detailed notes in the Festival Programme, the work of Richard Stokes and others. I find it impossible to resist describing the Festival with an oenophile analogy. It was two weeks of vintage wine tasting and enjoyment, from the Beaujolais Nouveau of sixth formers to the Grand Cru of the opening concert, with the master classes providing tutored tastings of young wine and the pre-concert talks as tasting notes.
The Festival opened with children from Botley and from Bayards Hill Primary Schools presenting the results of workshops held during the preceding week. On the second day a group of five sixth formers, students of singing at local schools, were coached by Susan Young and Sholto Kynoch. It was fascinating to hear these talented, though untrained, voices responding to the tutors, showing remarkable maturity of interpretation.
The opening concert was given by Dame Felicity Lott with the pianist Maciej Pikulski. It was held in St Aldate’s Church (a concert venue new to me) which has a pleasant ambience and a clear acoustic but with the distraction of traffic noise and the tolling of Great Tom. A wall-hanging behind the piano proclaimed ‘Glory to God - The Heavenly Heights’. The programme was craftily composed to illustrate German romanticism (Schumann and Strauss), Gallic cynicism (Hahn, Yvain, Messager) and Anglo-Saxon wit, albeit a little dated (Noel Coward). One could not resist wondering what the Almighty made of some of the lyrics! The singer has lost none of her power to entrance since we heard her in Oxford in La Voix Humaine with Glyndebourne touring in 1977 – and that’s twenty-nine years ago! She completely captivated the audience with this varied programme, particularly the late Schumann lieder and the group of increasingly risqué French songs. Her pianist was superb, with utmost respect for the style of the composer - in the Schumann, his warm legato melodic line contrasting with the depiction of tears, rain, the dew.
Sophie Daneman is among many singers these days who have double careers combining eighteenth century opera with nineteenth century lieder. She could have brought more of the eighteenth century to her interpretation of the three uncomplicated Haydn, Anne Hunter settings which opened her programme. Her next group, of Schumann songs, sung beautifully enough, had to stand comparison with Lott the evening before – unfair. There followed ten songs from Wolf’s Italienisches Liederbuch sung with great charm and greater exuberance. One felt it was only the playing of Julius Drake, her pianist, which kept things under control. What tremendous support this pianist gives to his singers! New to me, a highlight of the concert was the sympathetic rendering of Richard Rodney Bennett’s Garland for Marjory Fleming who wrote the poems just before her death, aged eight, in 1811 – apart, that is, from Cole Porter’s grisly tale of a socially ambitious oyster, sung as an encore.
The third evening provided a rare opportunity to hear the whole of the Italienisches Liederbuch, as intended by the composer – and what a fantastic performance! It was given by three young musicians, recent graduates of the Royal Academy of Music, Lucy Crowe (soprano, a late substitute), William Berger (baritone) and John Reid (piano). The forty-six verses by Paul Heyse, based on Italian originals exploring every aspect of relations between men and women, are divided equally between the male and the female voice. Crowe, with beautiful voice, lived every moment of her songs, particularly effective in the more light-hearted numbers. Berger, more reticent and subtle in gesture, sang with glorious power and accuracy. The pianist played with complete assurance his sometimes fiendishly difficult part, providing well-judged continuity in a totally integrated performance. Marvellous!
The Ukrainian born baritone Vassily Savenko has a voice five times the size of the Holywell Music Room! Inevitably he had to scale it down to fit. His programme gave a well-chosen overview of the beauty of Russian song from Tchaikowski to Shostakovich (admirably introduced pre-concert by Phillip Bullock). Each song was persuasively sung giving us a real desire to learn more of this little-known repertoire and to hear this singer in more spacious surroundings. The following evening introduced us to a sensational newly emerging Swedish singer, Anna Grevelius, with a wonderful voice - a wide range from dark velvety lower register to thrilling top notes – and the personality to support it. She sang Greig, convincing us that he is up there with the top lieder composers, and other Scandinavian songs. Kynoch, at the piano, removed any fears that the heavy burden of artistic direction might have affected his concentration.
I must confess that it was the pianist, Graham Johnson (Jesus College Visiting Artist), who drew me to the next concert: but the singers, Austrian Daniela Lehner and New Zealander Jared Holt, proved worthy of his art. The programme was of solos and duets by Beethoven, Schumann and Cornelius and a brief tour d’horizon of French chanson by the baritone. Lehner has a beautiful voice and a very mature approach for her years; it was a revealing delight to hear her native voice among all the non-germanophone singers heard at the Festival. A cloud was the late cancellation by John Mark Ainsley due to sing Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Kerner Lieder; the silver lining was a chance to hear the 2006 Kathleen Ferrier award winner Elizabeth Watts with Roger Vignoles. It was also a chance to hear a set of songs by Debussy, underrepresented (as was Fauré) in such a festival but the singer came into her own with the late romantics Rachmaninov and Richard Strauss. She has the makings of a great dramatic soprano.
Four recitals, Lunch with Schumann, in association with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, featured his song cycles. The first, given by Rowan Hellier (mezzo) with the pianist Jonathan Beatty was disappointing. It was soon apparent, alas, that she was completely out of her emotional depth in Frauenliebe und Leben. She came much more to life in three Britten Cabaret Songs that completed the programme; the title of the first, ‘Teach me the truth about love’ could not have been more apposite. The second recital, Liederkreis, Op.24, with Britten and Vaughan Williams was given by Maciek O’Shea with Jennie-Helen Moston (piano). This singer has gone from strength to strength since we heard him in the first Oxford Lieder Festival in 2002. The same can be said of two other singers who have grown in maturity during their association with Oxford Lieder since its inception. Jasia Julia Nielsen sang Wolf, Mahler and Scandinavian songs at a ‘Rush Hour’ concert which packed the Church of St Michael at the North Gate. Susan Young, in her recital, performed delightfully songs of women poets with a particularly sensitive pianist in Iain Farrington, a quality which enhanced a world-première Festival commission – Three Emily Dickinson Songs - by twenty-year-old Hugo Brunt. The third Schumann lunch, devoted to Myrten, Robert’s wedding gift to Clara, introduced us to an exceptional Austrian baritone, Lukas Kargl, whose performance, supported by the wonderfully expressive accompaniment of Marc Verter, moved some of the audience to tears. Clara Hendrick sang the feminine songs sweetly enough.
A second rush hour concert gave us more Scandinavian songs, Stenhammer (worth an airing) and Nielsen (more so), and Vaughan Williams from yet another very fine baritone Håkan Ekenäs with Peter Møllerhøj (piano), particularly thrilling in Songs of Travel. This was followed by an enjoyably relaxing concert (after the intensity of all the lieder) of solos, duets and quartets given in the Cathedral by Young, Nielsen, O’Shea and the tenor Andrew Tortise with Kynoch, though it never really caught fire. Cathedral temperature too low?
The climactic concert of the Festival was a performance of Schubert’s Winterreise by tenor James Gilchrist and Julius Drake, which packed the Holywell Music Room with a real sense of occasion. It was brilliantly introduced by an enlightening pre-concert talk by Roderick Swanston who taught us to listen to the piano, advice which enhanced the appreciation of the performance as a whole. The performance was an emotionally charged experience from the first note to the last with complete unity of singer and pianist. The style of both performers was characterised by an enormous dynamic range from the sweetest pianissimo to an unforced fortissimo with great subtlety of gradation in between. The performers, voice and piano, the composer, the poet, Wilhelm Müller, and, not to be forgotten, the acoustic of the Holywell Music Room all contributed to a truly memorable evening.
Susan Gritton and Eugene Asti proved a worthy choice to give the final concert. They performed Mozart, Wolf, Schumann, Britten and Poulenc. Their mature musicality in songs from Italienische Liederbuch contrasted with the equally valid ebullience of Daneman and Drake and youthful sincerity of Crowe, Berger and Reid. Their high point was the sublime interpretation of Schumann’s late Op. 90, settings of poems by Lenau, sung with beautifully controlled melodic line, the piano in perfect sympathy.
This review has, with justification, exhausted my thesaurus of superlatives. Asked to select the primus inter pares (Winterreise is hors concours), I would find it impossible to choose between Crowe, Berger and Reid in the Italian Lieder Book, and the Swedish Anna Grevelius.
Why was this Festival not lauded in the national and local press?
28 October 2006