A packed house, and an audience prepared to adore
him no matter what he sang, greeted Bryn Terfel on Sunday, in
the latest of the Barbican's Celebrity Recitals. Terfel is on record
as saying that he doesn't need intellect to be a barrier for music,
he just wants to have fun. Well, both he and his audience certainly
had fun last night, and although no music critic could possibly pretend
that his Schubert (except for the first encore) would pass muster at,
say, the Schubertiade or the Wigmore Hall, his varied, quite ambitious
programme gave much genuine musical pleasure, not least from the superb
playing of Malcolm Martineau.
The opening Schubert group, all settings of Goethe,
combined exuberance with introspection, and Terfel presented both moods
with varying degrees of success. He opened, uncompromisingly, with "An
Schwager Kronos" - the last time I heard this song in performance was
by Thomas Quasthoff at the Schubertiade; he sang it, not in opening
but in closing his programme, and it seems to me far more appropriate
for that; welcoming gates do open at the end of the song, but they are
the gates of hell! It's a tempestuous, arrogant piece in which Schubert's
inspired setting echoes the poet's restlessness and swagger. The piano
part is hugely challenging, and Martineau rose to it brilliantly, those
staccato quavers at the beginning urging the singer onward, and the
arpeggios in the final section, harmony changing in almost every bar,
were tossed off in a way that made you want to stand up and cheer, which
the audience more or less did, but not, I think, for the playing. Terfel
sang it well, with musical phrasing and even tone, but, as in all of
this group, it was not Schubert singing of the highest order. To compare
him with Quasthoff is to set him alongside the very best, but that is,
surely, where he belongs, and the younger man's performance here could
not hold a candle to the German bass-baritone's superb colouring of
the words and highly dramatic impersonation.
"Heidenröslein" and "Der Musensohn" followed,
in winning performances which were just a little short on subtle vocal
colour and a little too long on winsome emphasis; he presents the former
as a comic little interlude and the latter, more convincingly, as a
joyful, youthful romp, whilst not neglecting the poignancy of the final
stanza. It was a great pity that several latecomers were allowed in
after this song, since the disturbance at such a point clearly threw
the singer, who made uncharacteristic mistakes in "Wandrers Nachtlied"
and was unable to sustain the required mood of breathless calm. Surely
it should be drummed into the hall's staff that they are only to admit
latecomers at a suitable time, such as the pause between groups, and
not in the middle of a set? Or was it the case, that these arrogant
members of the audience simply did not know how these things should
be run, and made themselves difficult at the door? Certainly, much of
the house seemed to be composed of people who would not know Schubert
from Schoenberg (or Shinola, for that matter) but at least the majority
were silent during the actual singing.
"Geheimes" is one of my favourite Schubert songs,
and here both singer and pianist were equal to its subtle demands. It
presents perhaps more of a challenge to pianist than singer, in that
the former must hold his nerve for so many rests and so much sighing
in the phrases, as well as maintain an exceptional level of sensitivity
of touch, and Martineau's playing was perfection. The singing was exceptionally
delicate, too, whilst managing to avoid archness, although it did not
quite convey that characteristic Schubertian hesitancy as captivatingly
as Ainsley does on the Hyperion recording.
"Erlkönig" brought this group to a close, in
a stirring performance which was again remarkable for the accompaniment;
I don't think I have ever heard those challenging octaves depicting
the galloping horse's hooves, played with such dramatic power and sense
of virtuosic ease. Terfel used his operatic powers of characterisation
to some effect, especially in the child's anguished cries, but he did
not move me throughout; it may seem churlish to use the same comparison
again, but when Quasthoff sang this at Schwarzenberg, you shivered at
the uncanny eeriness of his malevolent Spirit, and marvelled at his
other impersonations. Individual words, too, were treated differently
- whereas Terfel obviously knew that "grausets" and "ächzende"
are words worthy of stress, he did not quite seem to know why or how,
so they came out as generally plucked from their lines, whereas Quasthoff
made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up with the way he uttered
them; at his "grausets," I clearly recall shuddering myself.
The remainder of the programme showed Terfel in a
much better light, increasingly so as the evening went on. Vaughan Williams'
"Songs of Travel" are perfect for this singer, with his open communication,
his robust style and frank treatment of sentimental passages, and his
performance of them came as close to the heart's desire as can be imagined.
"Let beauty awake" was an object lesson in the singing (and playing)
of English Song; the shapely lines were phrased with unaffected grace,
and the touching final line "To render again and receive" was moving
in its sense of wonder and tenderness. This cycle has often been seen
as a kind of English "Winterreise," and Terfel was successful in bringing
out some of the echoes of that great work, especially in the wonderful
"The infinite shining heavens" where the wanderer experiences a brief
moment of illumination in his travels; the singing of the lines "Till
lo! I looked in the dusk / And a star had come down to me." provided
one of those rare time-stands-still moments. Beautiful, beautiful singing.
The second half opened with two short but highly evocative
sets, three Shakespeare songs by Quilter and three of Copland's "Old
American Songs" and you could hardly ask for greater contrasts than
those provided here - Quilter's finesse and Copland's earthiness, Shakespeare's
melancholy, bittersweet texts and the vernacular lilt of the traditional
lyrics which Copland set. The Quilter songs were finely sung and characterised,
especially the poignant "O mistress mine," and Terfel clearly relished
the American songs, singing with that ".certain purity in the presentation
of the vocal line" which the composer desired.
The evening's major work was the U.K. premiere of
Jake Heggie's "The Moon is a Mirror", written for Terfel and indeed
expanded from three songs to five at his instigation. Heggie is composer
in residence at San Francisco Opera, and his debut opera, "Dead Man
Walking", was a great success. He is clearly a singers' composer; previous
collaborators have included Frederica von Stade and Renee Fleming, and
his style is immediately accessible, being lyrical, tuneful and sensitive
to language. The cycle is composed of five poems by Vachel Lindsay,
all reflections on the moon from different points of view, with each
character, as the composer says, projecting "his heart's desire onto
the moon" and expressing "the full gamut of human emotions."
Heggie wanted to make each song a small piece of theatre,
and in doing so to give Terfel a vehicle for his larger - than - life
style; in this he succeeds triumphantly, and it is even more remarkable
that this present-day work is so instantly recognisable to such a mixed
audience. Musically, the interpretation of the poems is straightforward,
with the words set as naturalistically as possible, even in the poem
about the old horse, and the piano and voice parts are beautifully paired.
The most obvious comparison, to me, was the music of Peter Warlock,
and it was refreshing to hear a young composer achieving the same kind
of intimacy with language which was Warlock's trademark. Terfel wanted
the final song to be a "top-hat-and tails" character, and "What the
snow man said" certainly provided a vehicle for that part of his persona,
whilst movingly suggesting the pathos behind Lindsay's lines "Proclaiming
Christmas all the time / And the glory of the snow!"
A selection of Welsh Folk Songs, arranged by Bryan
Davies, brought the scheduled part of the recital to a close. Orwell
described the Welsh language as capable of expressing "every emotion
known to man," and these traditional lyrics were bound to bring out
the best in this very Welsh singer. "My Little Welsh Home," composed
in 1921 by the Eisteddfod director W.S. Gwynn Williams, is the sort
of thing that you either love or loathe; oozing with sentiment and nostalgia,
it is bound to call forth tears from the susceptible and scoffs from
the cynical, amongst which latter I would number myself, were it not
for the fact that I did actually find his singing of it very engaging.
About "Ar Lan y Môr, however, there can be no debate; this is
simply one of the most lovely pieces in the whole song repertoire, capable
of engaging listeners of every level of sophistication, and lying so
beautifully for the voice that it is surprising that more non - Welsh
baritones do not give it a try. Call me an old softie, but I found Terfel's
singing of the lines "Ar lan y môr mae 'nghariad inne" and "Ar
lan y môr mae blodau'r meibion" (By the sea is my sweetheart /
By the sea are the flowers of youth) just as moving as if he had been
singing "Frühlingstraum."
A friend waggishly reminded me "Now, you can't leave
before the encores - hacks aren't allowed to!" - no doubt he knew exactly
how my heart would sink at what I knew was to come. Taking them in reverse
order, "How to handle a Woman" was sung with vast amounts of charm,
elegant phrasing and expert timing - cue mass knicker-dropping from
sections of the audience. "Mud, Glorious Mud" was - well - embarrassing,
but then that's just me, and it has to be said that, as always, Terfel
played his audience like an instrument, with Martineau aiding and abetting
him in fine form; they are both real showmen in the best sense of that
term, if it has one. Swathes of ecstatic sighing from ladies of a certain
age, standing ovations from those who could still get to their feet
without embarrassing themselves.
The first encore was Schubert's "Litanei auf das Fest
Aller Seelen," and it was something else again. This sublime song, with
its canon- like grandeur and its long, difficult lines, demands a perfect
legato technique as well as the courage to sustain an almost rubato-less
vocal production for two long stanzas, above a softly rocking piano
line. The performance can only be described as virtually perfect; Terfel
employed his wonderful sotto voce, especially in the upper part of his
voice, in such a way as to have the audience hanging on each syllable,
fining his tone down to a slender thread; I can truly say that I have
never before heard such a silence from an audience as was evident here,
not even at the Wigmore Hall. Ardderchog! (welsh, Fantastic!)
Melanie Eskenazi
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