SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Susan Graham in London: Wigmore Hall Song Recital Series / French Season: Susan Graham (mezzo-soprano), Malcolm Martineau (piano), Wigmore Hall, London 9. 2.2008 (JPr)


After the relative disappointment of the recent Bernarda Fink recital I returned to the Wigmore Hall for another programme with a mezzo-soprano, this time the American Susan Graham. Devised by Ms Graham and her accompanist, Malcolm Martineau this was a retrospective of French Art Songs of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Only three of 22 composers of Mélodies were repeated (Fauré, Debussy and Hahn) and the centuries were split by the interval and the songs were put into five ‘lots’: the progenitors of the French Art Song, ‘night’, animals/humour/love, vocal technique/childhood and a final work, less a Mélodie and rather more operatic by Francis Poulenc.

Beginning with Bizet’s Chanson d’avril it was clear how much there was a partnership at work here between singer and pianist : here there are hints of Carmen's Micaëla but equally important was the urgent accompaniment. Graham gave Franck’s Nocturne an anxious, yearning quality with a beautifully floated top note at the end. Victor Hugo’s text about ‘kissing and cuddling’ in an old abbey is set by Fauré in Dans les ruines d’une abbaye and was playfully charming. ‘Où voulez-vous aller?’ from a touching poem by Théophile Gautier was full of thoughts of love and far-away places, none of them Scotland though the opening chords seemed to make one think of it. Here,  Susan Graham revealed the breadth of her fine mezzo voice with an elegant coloratura while singing ‘La brise va souffler!’ (The  breeze about to blow). Guitare by Lalo (also to a Hugo text) was a small intense song. Saint-Saëns’ Danse macabre is a familiar tune, the song less so, and there were some wonderful colours in Ms Graham’s voice and restless, atmospheric support from the piano.

Chabrier’s cicadas (Les cigales) didn’t really sound the part in this comic song but, a composer I had never heard of, Emile Paladilhe provided a Psyché that was weightier fare and hauntingly beautiful. The Debussy song Harmonie du soir could have been by no-one else and continued to challenge Susan Graham’s emotional palette as well her vocal range from the bottom up smoothly to ‘ostensoir’ at the very top of her mezzo range. Chausson’s Les papillons fluttered away quickly and Bachelet’s Chère nuit was another nocturne in which was wonderful breath control notably for ‘De ton mystère, calme et charment’ (In your mystery, tranquil and charming). This second group ended with Henri Duparc’s Au pays où se fait la guerre (To the land where there is war.) This composer left us only 20 songs and once again there was fine control in the singing and a spooky pre-Mahlerian military ritornello at the end to tell us that the lover will never return from the battlefield.

Susan Graham’s personal good humour evident in the appropriate songs so far was revealed as she acknowledged the applause on her entry for the second part of her programme. She had changed her dress from something heavier to a more diaphanous black lace number and mimed that this was because she was feeling too hot. She began with Ravel and Le paon (‘The peacock’), and this light-heartedness continued in a conversationally cute ‘drama’ throughout the Aesop-put-to-music Le corbeau et le renard (‘The crow and the fox’). This was another delightfully wry account not very far from Mahler’s Wunderhorn song ‘In praise of high intellect’. Réponse d’une épouse sage (‘The chaste wife’s reply’) was very witty. The twentieth century was by now making itself heard though some dissonances and this developed through a haunting, frantic, helter-skelter by  Messiaen (La fiancée perdue) and Debussy’s Mahlerian Colloque sentimental that followed.

Fauré’s Vocalise was beautiful and nicely controlled but was a fairly pointless inclusion to my mind.  Reynaldo Hahn was a French Venezuelan and there is always a hint of Bach or Mozart about him such as in his Tyrandis. ‘The Hatter’ (Le Chapelier) by Satie is obviously ‘The Mad Hatter’,  a silly trifle that is difficult to sing and rushes up and down the voice. Arthur Honegger’s Trois Chansons de la Petite Sirène sounded more old-fashioned compared to the other twentieth-century songs so far. Actually not French but ‘Auvergnese’ is Canteloube’s Brezairola, a lullaby from his Chants d’Auvergne that was as soothing, tender and irresistible as you would expect it to be given the talents of Graham and Martineau on the platform. Manuel Rosenthal’s La souris d’Angleterre (‘The English mouse’) recollects the recent cartoon film Ratatouille and tells the tale of the exploits and tragic end of the protagonist. The chopping note in the music marks the end the English mouse’s life as he succumbs to the attraction of the ‘Chester’ cheese in the mouse trap.

The official end of the recital was Francis Poulenc’s La Dame de Monte Carlo. Although undoubtedly operatic, in hindsight this is more a cabaret song as the protagonist here also meets a sad end after living too full a life at the gambling tables. About two-thirds the way through the drama takes hold and the intensity heightens significantly. Ms Graham reveals unending resources of stamina to make the abrupt end at the concluding ‘Monte Car….lo’ a heart-rending description of the fall into the sea.

I stepped out of my comfort zone (Italian or German repertoire) for this recital and would not have believed I could have enjoyed an entirely French programme quite so much. That I did so, was wholly due to Susan Graham and Martin Martineau’s combined consummate artistry in this varied and lovingly prepared recital. If anything, the encores were better still, a velvety and perfectly enunciated (like every song in the programme) performance of ‘À Chloris’ by Reynaldo Hahn and then as the most apt end to this recital - and while in an international website like this,  I cannot condone the sentiment at all - Ms Graham sang the Noël Coward ditty, ‘There’s always something fishy about the French’. These two items alone would be all that would be needed to confirm Susan Graham as the ideal package she is, an elegant singer who can be both dramatic and comic.

Jim Pritchard


Back to Top                                                    Cumulative Index Page