Recital

25 January 2010, 7.30pm

Wigmore Hall, London

Simon Keenlyside
Malcolm Martineau

Programme

Schubert
Lied des Orpheus, als er in die Hölle ging
Der Tod und das Mädchen
Daß sie hier gewesen
An den Mond in einer Herbstnacht

Wolf
An eine Äolsharfe
Auf einer Wanderung
Lied eines Verliebten
Der Jäger

Brahms
Nachtigallen schwingen lustig
Verzagen
Über die Heide
An eine Äolsharfe
Auf dem Kirchhofe
Wir wandelten
Von ewiger Liebe
An die Nachtigall
Es schauen die Blumen
Nachtwandler
Abenddämmerung

Encores:

Schumann Stille Liebe
Schubert Waldesnacht

Demonstrating his versatility, Simon Keenlyside brings his flair as a dramatic singer to the more intimate world of German song, presenting a programme ranging across the 19th century from the miniature masterpieces of Schubert to the windswept intensity of the songs of Hugo Wolf. His regular recital partner Malcolm Martineau will add to the interpretative sensitivity of this eagerly awaited evening.

What the critics say

Hilary Finch, The Times, 27 January

5 from 5 stars

The night was young when Simon Keenlyside sang his encores, Schumann’s Stille Liebe and Schubert’s Waldesnacht, and he sounded as though he could happily have gone on until past midnight. Many in the audience would clearly have stayed until dawn broke.

Few living singers can tap into Schumann’s nerve system as movingly as Keenlyside. Stille Liebe is from the composer’s little-known Kerner-Lieder and, with no immediate context or preparation, Keenlyside captured minutely the emotional diffidence and fragile ardour of the song.

And then the forest mysticism of Waldesnacht, with sudden hushed frissons of wonder, and with an elemental power surging through each rigorously etched rhythm and phrase.

Keenlyside’s programme had focused on Schubert, Wolf and Brahms, starting with the Song of Orpheus as he Entered Hell. Lament, tenderness and defiance all found their own momentum in a song not easy to pace or to structure. Because his baritone was in superb focus, the body was too. Keenlyside is an intensely physical performer: his entire body seems to want to be in on the act. But the edge of restless nervousness that used to distract is now controlled, and focused as an integrated part of the distinctive character of his performance. At the heart of this is a fearless honesty, a determination fully to inhabit and communicate the expressive world of each song. Keenlyside’s four Mörike songs by Hugo Wolf were sung as they were written: in an apparent single surge of imaginative energy.

Malcolm Martineau’s piano playing here was outstandingly eloquent, stage-managing the emotional drama of a lover’s dawn song or a huntsman’s heartsick soul-storm. Martineau it was who rocked the cradle in the ambivalent and bittersweet lullaby of Brahms’s Nachtwandler, one of 11 songs in which Keenlyside powerfully balanced expansive ardour with innermost fear.

Adrian Horsewood, musicOMH

5 from 5 stars

It is a sign of Simon Keenlyside’s standing that he can appear twice at the Wigmore Hall in four days, performing the same programme – Schubert, Wolf and Brahms – on each occasion, and sell out the hall twice.

His star is certainly in the ascendant, highlights in the last six months including show-stealing performances as Posa in the Royal Opera House’s revival of Verdi’s Don Carlos, his first Wozzeck (London and Paris), and his latest recording, of Brahms songs (with his Wigmore partner, Malcolm Martineau).

Keenlyside has won most plaudits during his career for his appearances in opera, and while he is also an extremely distinguished recitalist, his greater comfort and conviction in those songs which allowed for the portrayal of distinct characters was perhaps due to his extensive dramatic background. Thus, in the opening Schubert set, ‘Der Tod und das Mädchen’ was schizophrenically chilling, Keenlyside’s characterization of Death made all the more noble by his effortless low D at the end, and ‘Lied des Orpheus, als er in die Hölle ging’ (Song of Orpheus as he entered Hell) tugged at all the heartstrings as Keenlyside journeyed through imploring, lamenting, stirring and triumphant.

In contrast, in ‘Daß sie hier gewesen’ and ‘An den Mond in einer Herbstnacht’, while never producing less than ravishingly beautiful singing, he seemed less at ease, his gaze flitting around the hall and his posture shifting nervously throughout these two still, sedate songs. These were then followed by the most thrilling and rapturous singing of the evening, four Wolf settings of poems by Eduard Mörike. The rolling narratives of ‘Auf einer Wanderung’ and ‘Der Jäger’ with their fevered Lebenslust contrasted with the eager yet light-hearted professions of love in ‘Lied eines Verliebten’, Keenlyside making Wolf’s sometimes awkward phrases sound effortless.

However, it was in ‘An eine Äolsharfe’ that Keenlyside and Martineau produced one of the most sublime Lieder performances I have heard, the latter’s expert recreation of the shimmering, ephemeral sound of the wind-harp matching every nuance and expressive colour of Keenlyside’s singing as he used all the vocal skills of a master-singer, summoning up together the Mediterranean scena and the mysterious, transformative power of nature contained in Mörike’s poem.

After this, it seemed almost a let-down to hear Brahms’s setting of the same text after the interval – a marvellous song in its own right, but not quite matching the enraptured intensity of Wolf’s version, despite Keenlyside’s performance. His selection of Brahms all revolved around interactions with nature, and included both the well-known and the less-often-heard. Chief among the former were ‘Von ewiger Liebe’, which I enjoyed hearing in a rich lyric baritone after years of mezzo-sopranos (and again, here, Keenlyside subtly yet imaginatively characterized the two lovers) and ‘Auf dem Kirchhofe’, in which we heard the full expressive and dynamic power of the voice. But Keenlyside can go from impressively powerful to heartbreakingly tender in an instant, and his pitiful lover in a half-sung, half-crooned ‘Wir wandelten’ was touching in its simplicity.

Keenlyside and Martineau looked backwards for their two encores, the brooding darkness of Schubert’s ‘Waldesnacht (Im Walde)’ being offset by ‘Stille Liebe’ from Schumann’s Kerner-lieder, a perfect choice, although one might dispute the latter’s closing lines, ‘I am pierced with bitter sorrow that you have heard nothing [of my song]’: we in the audience certainly heard – nay, hung on – every note from the pair, and came away greatly moved.