Peter Schofield's Reviews
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Song-fest: 

The 2008 Oxford Lieder Festival, 10-25 October.

Hot on the heels of Latin! came the seventh Oxford Lieder Festival. This was in two parts, a weekend devoted to Schubert and, following a two day break, eleven days mainly devoted to song influenced by gypsy and folk music. With such an ambitious programme it was not possible to attend every event and it was unfortunate that I had to miss the opening concert representing the retirement from the concert platform of the tenor Ian Partridge. By all accounts this was an event worthy of the occasion, in which he performed ‘Night Songs’ by Schubert with the Artistic Director of the Festival, pianist Sholto Kynoch. The other four Schubert concerts were devoted to collections of songs: the two great cycles, Winterreise sung by bass baritone Florian Boesch with Andrew West, and Die Schöne Müllerin with tenor James Gilchrist with Anna Tilbrook, and the settings of unrelated verses edited under the title Schwanengesang sung by tenor Joshua Ellicott with Joseph Middleton in three contrasted interpretations; the fourth was a set of early songs.many familiar, others less so, now believed to form an ordered cycle given the title Liederspiel, of poems by Kosegarten.

 Each of these four concerts had a characteristic form and level of interpretation. Liederspiel was performed delightfully by six Royal College of Music students, choreographed as if the audience was eavesdropping on the composer’s circle of friends. It was introduced and led by David Owen Norris. The concert was followed by a public masterclass with some of the singers, given by Ian Partridge, as usual full of insights. He touched on the question of whether the modern concert grand is the most appropriate instrument to accompany the voice in Schubert. This year the piano was the new Steinway C acquired for the Holywell Music Room by the Faculty of Music and officially launched on 1 November – a great improvement on the bass- heavy monster used last year. Strangely, it appeared to have a personality of its own as if forming a third partner in the ensemble though responding differently to the different pianists.

Boesch has a huge personality and a huge voice more suited to big operatic roles rather than to the intimacy of the lied. His wanderer displayed anger rather than anguish, frustration rather than faint-heartedness in a powerful, onrushing performance which reduced the piano to the role of accompaniment, albeit sympathetically played. Only in the last song, Der Leiermann, was calm restored. In contrast, Schwanengesang was given a very sensitive and attractive performance, pointing the contrasts between the unrelated songs, by the well-matched duo of Ellicott’s light tenor and Middleton’s delicate playing, in true Schubertian spirit. James Gilchrist’s performance of Winterreise was the memorable high-point of the 2006 Festival. His eagerly awaited return with Die Schöne Müllerin was postponed for a year due to illness in 2007, when at the last moment Daniel Norman stood in with Tilbrook. This year we were not disappointed. Gilchrist lives the part of the lovelorn miller, winning our sympathy with his predicament, overcoming the temptation to tell him to pull himself together and find a new girlfriend, which is the essential paradox of this great work (as Gilchrist pointed out in a short introduction). In voice and gesture and in relating to the moods evoked by the exquisite playing of Tilbrook, this was a near perfect experience. Far from the world of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau maybe but a supreme interpretation for our times.

After a two day gap there followed two concerts of gypsy and folk music (distinguished by their social origins). Mezzo Lucie Špicková with pianist Lada Valešová utterly charmed the audience with a programme of Czech songs, all characterised by an extended virtuostic role for piano. I particularly enjoyed the folk song settings by Martinů which opened the programme and Evening Songs by Smetena which closed it. The Prince Consort under its pianist director Alisdair Hogarth, another fantastic pianist, gave a programme entitled Zigeunerlieder. This included a rare performance of The diary of one who vanished by Janáček in a tour de force by Nicholas Mulroy, with Rowan Hellier, Brahms’ Volkslieder (sung, unusually, by a countertenor Tim Mead) and Zigeunerlieder (in a powerful performance by soprano Jennifer Johnston).

Oxford Lieder’s patron Sir Thomas Allen gave a recital of Duparc, Fauré and Ravel with Roger Vignoles (Jesus College Visiting Artist). They were bold enough to contend with a young duo selected by them as of outstanding potential, for ’15 minutes of fame’. Catherine Hopper (mezzo-soprano) and John Reid (the pianist in the unforgettable performance of Wolf’s Italienische Liederbuch which introduced us to Lucy Crowe in the 2006 Festival),. They performed Fauré and Debussy’s Chansons de Bilitis with marvellous stillness and beauty of tone.

In the final week we looked forward to another four concerts of exceptional quality. The baritone Giles Underwood, his light voice well-suited to songs by Vaughan Williams and Howard Ferguson and Stenhammar (with, I am told, impeccable Swedish accent) was partnered by Swedish pianist Martin Sturfält who with persuasive advocacy introduced us to this last composer. He played Three Fantasies for solo piano showing the composer to have a late romantic voice of his own with a hint of the salon. The other concerts were due to be given by three leading ladies of the British musical scene, whose careers I trace back in my opera diary to early appearances mainly in 18th century opera, now in full career, mezzos Susan Bickley with Julius Drake and Sarah Connolly with Eugene Asti and soprano Lisa Milne with baritone Mark Stone and Sholto Kynoch. In the event Milne was indisposed (for a second year) and was replaced at the last minute by two brilliant dramatic young singers Rowan Hellier (mezzo) and Rhona McKail (soprano). They rounded off the Festival with a great light-hearted entertainment based on Schubert, Wolf, Grieg, Rachmaninov and Quilter, a great tribute to the ‘house’ style of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Before the final concert we heard Bickley and Drake in a flawless recital of Britten, Michael Berkeley (Speaking Silence) and Ravel (repeating Histoires naturelles from the previous evening with Allen in a rapturous bravura performance) and Connolly and Asti in A Schumann Liederabend giving ’15 minutes of fame’ to another young duo Marcus Farnsworth (baritone) with Elizabeth Burgess (remembered for her administrative work in previous Festivals – it was good to hear her as a performer.)

The latter was a truly memorable event on several counts. Opening with some of Dichterliebe, Farnsworth then joined Connolly in the Opus 39 Liederkreis where, as if inspired by Asti’s playing, he matched her in voice and in maturity of interpretation. Asti’s playing is beyond praise. Exemplifying Julius Drake’s instruction to his masterclasses that the composer’s markings must be rigorously followed, he plays every detached note to exactly the right length with the utmost clarity, Schumann’s romanticism arising out of the score without imposed histrionics. In this way too he establishes a deep rapport with the singer. These qualities combined with Connolly’s vocal interpretation made their performance of Frauenliebe und –leben almost perfect, bringing the audience to the brink of tears despite the unfashionability of the sentiments.

The education programme this year under Martin Peters featured  a project in which a hundred and twenty pupils from two Banbury primary schools collaborated in devising a song-cycle around the theme of Baba Yaga. As in previous years Sarah Walker directed a residential master course, coaching nine advanced student duos who all performed in an extended concert at the end. Most of these were in the final stages of college, some already embarking on careers. The stars of the show were two Nordic singers with established stage personalities: a Terfel-like Swedish baritone Magnus Bilström and Icelandic mezzo Guja Sandholt who with her partner Carolyn Johnson-Wu formed the outstanding duo, singing Duparc. Other performers who caught the attention (as duos) were Jamie Rock (baritone) and Peter Wilkinson in Beethoven and Grieg and soprano Kathleen Garner with Maite Aguirre Quiñonero in Wolf; of the singers, ex New College Choral Scholar Thomas Kennedy was also impressive; all had something to say.

When trying to form an overall impression my memory becomes saturated with Gilchrist and Tilbrook and with Frauenliebe und –leben but I select a few other artists who communicated the chemistry which unites voice and piano of individual high quality into a true duo: Sandholt and Johnson-Wu, Hopper and Reid, Ellicott and Middleton, Bickley and Drake.


28 October 2008

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