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Seen an Heard International, January 5, 2015 |
Mark Berry |
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Liederabend, Wigmore Hall, London, 4. Januar 2015 |
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Jonas Kaufmann and Helmut Deutsch: An Outstanding Partnership
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Although 2015 has only just begun, it is difficult to imagine that there
will prove a more difficult musical ticket to acquire than one for Jonas
Kaufmann’s Wigmore Hall recital. Having abandoned all hope, I was extremely
fortunate to snap up a return the day beforehand. (Many thanks, far from
incidentally, to the ever-helpful Wigmore Hall in that respect!) It is
equally difficult to imagine that anyone will have attended the recital and
been disappointed – unless, that is, he or she, went along with that intent,
and even then I think it would have been difficult to follow through that
intent. Whilst I found the second half still more impressive than the first,
any reservations I might have held were far from earth-shattering.
One might have been the programming of the first half itself. It seemed a
pity only to have five of Schumann’s Kerner Lieder, and I wondered whether
some more Liszt, or perhaps even some Schubert or Strauss, might have
complemented the other songs better. But I was probably just being
ungrateful and/or greedy, since there was much to enjoy on the programme’s
own terms. Kaufmann crooned a little too often for my taste here, especially
in no.9, ‘Frage’. Even there, however, his imploring rendition exploited
most of what is best about a more ‘operatic’ approach to Lieder-singing. (A
great deal of nonsense is spoken about the relationship between song and
opera, largely by self-appointed guardians of the purity of the ‘Lied’. The
relationship is in fact, complex, concerning both work and performance, and
different artists will quite rightly bring different strengths to their
interpretations.) The dark, impetuous opening of ‘Lust der Sturmnacht’ set
up welcome, necessary contrast in a properly innig ‘Erstes Grün’, leaving
this listener at least with a lump in his throat fit to recall first or at
least early love. ‘Wanderung’ seemed to unite both tendencies, suggesting
cannier programming than I had first allowed. And the final ‘Stille Tränen’
proved ‘operatic’ in the best, blazing sense, Helmut Deutsch’s well-nigh
orchestral ‘accompaniment’ equally crucial here. Indeed, throughout I was
often just as impressed by Deutsch’s contribution, especially in this first
half, in which he proved himself, as if proof were needed, a Schumann player
of true distinction. Moreover, the two performers not only complemented each
other but supported and incited each other in a way that only the greatest
partnerships can.
Dichterliebe followed. ‘Im wunderschönen Monat Mai’
was euphoniously expectant to a degree. Here, and indeed throughout the
cycle, Deutsch’s piano voicing was what one might expect from a solo pianist
turned one-night collaborator; works such as the Arabeske, Faschingsschwank
aus Wien, and so on often coming to mind. (It would, I suspect, be wonderful
to hear him in some of the solo works.) The quickness, in more than one
sense, of the implied heartbeat in ‘Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube’ was
something no listener could ignore. Subtle artistry such as Kaufmann’s
lingering, enough but not too much, on ‘Ich liebe dich’ in the following
‘Wenn ich in deine Augen seh’’ emphasised a Romantic longing that seemed
precisely Schumann’s own. There was not so much in the way of irony, but
that is a characteristic of Schumann’s response to Heine’s far more ironic
verse, and a climax such as that to ‘Ich grolle nicht’ brought its own
rewards, such as cannot be found in ‘straight’ Heine. (One small(-ish) gripe
whilst speaking of the verse: Richard Stokes’s programme notes, whilst
interesting and informative upon Heine, had little to say concerning
Schumann’s setting of Heine’s verse; moreover, they had almost nothing at
all to say on Wagner’s or Liszt’s music.)
Under Deutsch’s fingers,
one truly heard the wedding band in ‘Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen’; Mahler
seemed briefly to beckon. ‘Aus alten Märchen’ offered a perfect instance of
the two musicians on stage collaborating to provide something greater than
the sum of its parts, the sense of German fairytale delight, its roots
perhaps in Weber as much as in the Brothers Grimm, quite a relief for one
song at least. Of course, ‘Die alten, bösen Lieder’ was still to come.
Resolute to begin with, the music seemed to sink in performance with the
coffin of Heine’s text. Schumann’s – and Deutsch’s – Bachian postlude,
however, offered magic that somehow went ‘beyond’, in any number of ways.
It is an unusual thing indeed to hear a man sing the Wesendonck Lieder,
though I am not entirely sure why, especially in the case of the original,
piano version. Not once during this performance, following the interval, did
it seem odd, or did I even reflect that this was not as it ‘should’ or at
least would usually be. Kaufmann indeed seemed just right for Wagner’s
style, the line of the opening ‘Der Engel’ immediately announcing its
kinship with the composer’s operas (and, if one must draw the distinction,
his music-dramas too). Deutsch too, and I do not mean this as a faint
compliment, captured Wagner’s piano style very well, wittingly or otherwise
offering connections with, for instance, the Sonata in A-flat major, also,
far from coincidentally, written with Mathilde Wesendonck in mind. (It is a
far better piece than its allegedly cultured despisers would have you
believe.) ‘Stehe still!’ intensified the impression of a singer every inch a
Siegmund. The clarity and purpose of ‘Im Treibhaus’- Deutsch’s achievement
at least as much as Kaufmann’s – could not but put to shame the aimless
meanderings of Antonio Pappano’s latest attempt at Wagner conducting at
Covent Garden, and heightened both the regret that we never hear Kaufmann
there in German repertoire and also the longing we should feel to hear him
as Tristan. The words ‘Schweigens Dunkel’ suggested a darkness, again
without undue exaggeration, that was truly musical – which is to say,
according to Wagner’s world-view of the time, truly metaphysical. Deutsch’s
piano part towards the song’s close rightly hinted at Schoenberg.
‘Schmerzen’ offered another experience ‘after “Winterstürme”’, preparing the
way for a ‘Träume’ full of erotic expectation and fulfilment.
Finally, perhaps the greatest performance of the evening: Liszt’s Petrarch
Sonnets, Kaufmann’s mix of the Germanic and the Italianate perfectly
complementing Liszt’s own. Occasionally, I might have liked something a
little more assertive here from Deutsch, but perhaps he was ensuring that
the greatest of all pianist-composers did not unduly favour his own
instrument. Kaufmann’s long ‘operatic’ line was superlatively fitted to
Liszt’s writing. No.47, ‘Benedetto sia ‘l giorno’ benefited not only from
that, but also from such splendid attention to detail as Kaufmann’s
crescendo on the second syllable of ‘Benedette [le voci tante]’, itself
echoed in the general crescendo of that third stanza so far as the end of
its third line: the calling of Laura’s name vividly portrayed, re-enacted,
memorialised. The final stanza simply sent shivers down the spine. ‘Pace non
trovo’ amply justified a relatively swift tempo – probably more suited to
vocal than solo piano performance. When Kaufmann sang of embracing the whole
world (‘tutto ’l mondo abbraccio’) one genuinely believed it to be a
possibility. The range of colours employed, even on a single word, such as
‘impaccio’, had almost to be heard to be believed. Deutsch again had one
relish the extraordinary piano writing, which for all the unrecognised
virtues of Wagner’s, effortlessly surpasses his. ‘I’ vidi in terra angelici
costumi’ proved, fittingly, the most seductive of all, the sweetness of the
final stanza – ‘Tanta dolcezza avea pien l’aer e ’l vento’ and all – an
object lesson in Romantic style and aptness of conclusion.
There
remained a rapt Schumann ‘Mondnacht’. Too beautiful? I wondered at the time,
but such puritanism was readily banished when I found it lingering in my
mind’s ear the following morning.
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