SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

 

It is rare to find a song recital as dramatically involving as this one. Gerald Finley is already well known as a great actor on the operatic stage, but I can’t remember the last time I saw a recitalist get so involved in the drama of his songs as much as he does. True, his choice of repertoire was designed to maximise this: Schumann’s great ballads are a gift to any singing actor. But I have seldom heard Belsatzar sung with such hair-raising intensity, or the story of the Two Grenadiers told with such hell-for-leather passion. The other Heine songs he chose gave him plenty of opportunity to revel in the longing and loss that forms the other side of the Romantic poet; Tragödie’s painful beauty was a great choice for opener, and Dein Angesicht was very touching.

 

Ravel’s semi-comic animal cycle, Histoires naturelles, while not explicitly narrative, is packed full of opportunities for delicate character studies, from the haughty peacock to the grotesque guinea-fowl. Finley even raised some laughs from the peacock’s tale; but Julius Drake stole the limelight in the piano’s depiction of the graceful swan and the endless right-hand figurations of the busy cricket.

 

Finley’s baritone is richer, more aristocratic than some of his fellows on the lieder stage, and he can evoke majesty and passion more ably than most. The Barber, and especially the Ives that ended this recital pointed up the beauty in the everyday, such as the dignified beggar of West London. It was a nice – and surprising – touch, however, to end with Ives’ cod cowboy ballad Charlie Rutlage, complete with the singer’s Wild West drawl and comic timing. This recital was a remarkably complete display of what a great singer can do.

 

The concert was recorded by BBC Radio 3 and will be broadcast on Friday 3^rd September. The Edinburgh International Festival runs until Sunday 5^th September in venues across the city. For full details and to book tickets go to www.eif.co.uk.

 

Simon Thompson

 

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