Brahms, Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov, Strauss, Poulenc, Debussy, Ravel: Simon Keenlyside (baritone), Julius Drake (piano), Wigmore Hall, London, 23.1.2007 (AO)

The Wigmore Hall was packed for this performance.  Even the standing room spaces were sold out.  It was one of those nights when you really needed a pre-booked ticket, as the chances of a return or no show were low.  The audience seemed to be made up of Keenlyside’s huge opera fan base, for he has carved out a formidable reputation in that genre. 

This was an evening of communal celebration, so it was pointless to expect soul- searching insight into Brahms. In any case, a fairly four square style doesn’t go wrong in these particular songs, so if there were a few vocal strains and a fairly bland approach, it was hardly a problem.  More of a treat were the Russian songs, and Keenlyside rose to the occasion.  The Rimsky-Korsakov song, Vostochochnyi romans, or Eastern Song, gave Drake a chance to display his skills at exotic piano decoration.  More interesting from an interpretative point of view were the four Rachmaninov songs which also showcased the deep timbre of Keenlyside’s register. In the surprisingly spiky setting of Rechnaya Illaya, the Waterlily, Keenlyside captured the jaunty rhythm well.  Drake’s postlude at the end of the last song, Son, a Dream, concluded the set on a lyrical note.

Keenlyside’s Strauss singing always interesting. By this stage in the concert, his voice had regained its poise and he managed the lighter, higher tone of Ständchen with ease, as one should, when singing of “steps, as light as the steps of elves, as they hop over flowers”. In the last verse of All’ mein Gedanken, the poet’s thoughts morph into spirits who knock on the girlfriend’s window and call on her to let them in. After 40 years of listening to Lieder, such imagery seems perfectly normal, rather than surreal. So perhaps Keenlyside’s drawing attention to them was an amusing “new” way of listening to the song! I wish he’d included the Brahms setting of the same Felix Dahn poem for comparison – it’s one of the most beautiful of all, and perfectly suited to Keenlyside’s deep timbre. 

When Keenlyside launched into the French part of the programme, you could hear why he is so outstandingly good in dramatic music.  Each of these songs is a vignette of character, a short, almost narrative account of the subject of the song.  In this sense, French song is “not” Lieder, where inner symbolism is all important.  In this genre, what counts is characterisation.  That raises intriguing questions about Hugo Wolf, whose songs straddle both genres, but I digress……  Anyway, these songs are ideal for an audience more attuned to opera than to Lieder, and Keenlyside carried them off wonderfully.  

Indeed, Poulenc’s Le travail du peintre is “about” painting as much as music, for Paul Éluard’s poem refers specifically to visual images. Each song in the set focuses on a particular painter, capturing in sound an insight into the painter’s work.  For example, take the phrase “un couple  le premier reflect” which stands distinctly on its own in the poem, hovering in mid-air like the lovers, cows and fiddlers in Chagall’s paintings.  Poulenc sets the line with equal whimsy, letting the sound float.  In Georges Braque, you can almost see cubist form in the fractured rhythms and angular metre. Paul Klee comes alive, too, the notes flying about, revealing different facets of colour.  You can appreciate why seeing Klee’s paintings had such a seminal influence of Pierre Boulez and shaped Boulez’s as a composer.  Alas, again I digress….!  Keenlyside and Drake were in their element, enjoying the portrayals within portrayals with enthusiasm. 

For relative contrast, they interjected their second set of Poulenc dramas with some Debussy, rather like a clarifying sorbet between main courses.  In the final verse of Voici le printemps, Keenlyside sang the challengingly high with a fine, delicate touch.  He also captured the gentle humour in Mandoline, where the lalalala embellishments add a wry, ironic commentary.  Then, on to some of Poulenc’s Appollinaire settings.  Each of these is like a snapshot of a moment in time: Carte postale sums it up nicely. In the poem, someone is playing a piano, but whom, why and whence are questions evoked rather than answered.   Similarly, the famous Montparnasse portrays a “bon petit poète un peu bête et trop blond”, whose eyes are like blue balloons, floating into the air.  You’re intrigued and wonder who he is, and what will be come of him, like a scene from a wider narrative.  Much of the impact of these vignettes lies in the detail.  Thus when Keenlyside spits out “carnival chapeau rose Ave” at the end of 1904,  the image of a silly pink hat on the waitress’s flaming red hair seems to encapsulate the difference between 1904 (the period in the text) and Hebe, who waited on the gods in Greek mythology. It’s a single phrase but evokes such intense feeling. 

Ravel’s Don Quichotte à Dulcinée was written for no less than Chaliapin, so it was good to hear Keenlyside sing it, since he’s probably the finest and most experienced baritone in Britain today.  Commissioned for a French film, and set to a French text, it nonetheless captures exotic “Spanish” colour a film audience would expect, and which of course came naturally to Ravel.  Here are glimpses of various Spanish idioms, and even a witty “guitar” ostinato.  Drake was in his element switching between forms.  These songs are full of warm heated humour – in the last song Chanson à boire, the piano even manages a loud burp! 

Keenlyside and Drake gave an extended encore of four songs, which was great value for ticket price, but problematic for those who had to rush for public transport.  Beautifully modulated singing and playing made the Schubert songs a welcome extra, but for me, the highlights of the evening were the Poulenc and Ravel songs, performed with such idiomatic flourish.

Anne Ozorio