The programme for the 2003 Cheltenham
Music Festival has exceeded even the high expectations of those who
are lucky enough to be familiar with this combination of the perfect
venue and the most pleasing programming: astonishingly for a festival
lasting a mere seventeen days, there are no fewer than nineteen World
Premieres, and beyond that the composers featured this year are Handel,
Debussy and Lennox Berkeley (in celebration of the centenary of his
birth) with concerts ranging from the ‘something for everyone’ category
as exemplified by an evening of ‘arias and songs from the musicals’
performed at the Racecourse by Jose Carreras and Bryn Terfel , to this
rather more rarefied recital in the intimate splendour of the Pittville
Pump Room.
This was a beautifully planned
morning, offering that ideal combination of some of the most familiar
songs in the repertoire with some which are only rarely heard, performed
by a tenor who is now at the peak of his considerable powers, partnered
with elegance by one of our leading accompanists. I would probably line
up to hear Mendelssohn’s settings of Heine if they were given by yet
another bleater incapable of counting three in a bar, but Ainsley’s
performance was perfection: just as Mendelssohn catches that bittersweet
and sometimes rather sinister atmosphere which defines these poems,
the singing here eschewed any kind of over-sentimental generality and
gave the songs as they should be given, with the same kind of loving
attention to detail and commitment to the poetry as is usually reserved
for, say, Schubert. ‘Auf Flügeln des Gesänges’ is of course
the ideal opening to a recital, with its invitation to the pleasures
of a world of sensuousness, and it gave ample opportunity for Ainsley
to display his lovely, mellifluous tone and remarkable breath control,
and for Vignoles to show exactly what it is that makes a great accompanist:
so easy to stroll languidly through this music, rippling away under
the singer’s lines, but here the accompaniment supported the singer
without undue reticence, and the piano provided the partner rather than
the mere echo to such phrases as ‘Die Veilchen kichern und kosen’ .
‘Gruss’ is one of those deceptive
little songs: on the page, it looks so simple, with its gently rocking
melody and lyrical sweetness, but like so much of Mendelssohn it’s not
quite so easy as it looks. Over a delicately hesitant piano, the singer
opens his heart, full of love – the words are redolent of innocence
but the music throbs with passion, and the challenges here are the temptation
towards the arch at the ending ‘Sag, ich lass sie grüssen’ and
the lure of making a big bow-wow at that crescendo at ‘Weite’ – traps
into which singers have fallen many times in my hearing, but not this
one. Ainsley’s beautifully coloured, open tone at that crucial word,
and his affectionate but not cloying rendition of the final line were
both fine beyond praise. It helps tremendously, of course, that his
German, like his Italian, is flawless – his French hasn’t been, of late,
but that’s something else. The tempestuous ‘Reiselied’ brought this
group to a rousing conclusion, both singer and pianist relishing the
sardonic ‘in your dreams’ ending.’
Alan Ridout wrote his Georg-Lieder
cycle for John Mark Ainsley in 1985, and it’s such a pity that the composer
died before these beautiful songs were given their first public performances.
It’s easy to hear why Ridout was inspired to dedicate this cycle to
this singer, since these heartfelt love songs need exactly the kind
of open, direct yet sensitive interpretation which is Ainsley’s hallmark,
and although they are a product of the last 20 years they are so graceful
that they could not fail to move even those for whom melody died with
Mahler. There is a lot of Schumann in the quality of the word setting,
especially in the rapt devotion of the first and last songs, yet they
possess a lyrical identity that is absolutely their own. Critics lost
for superlatives often say of a singer that he ‘sang the songs as though
they’d been written for him’ and of course these actually were: Ainsley
sang them with perfect grace, and Vignoles gave him eloquent support.
This song cycle needs recording, preferably alongside ‘Dichterliebe’
– can the market stand another version of the latter? Of course it can,
if it is performed by these musicians.
The second half of the recital
was devoted to French music, or at least music with a French connection.
Poulenc’s Four Chansons found Ainsley and Vignoles in slightly less
ideal form than the Ridout and Mendelssohn: these anxious, rather angular
settings of poems by Aragon, Apollinaire and Charles d’Orleans are difficult
to bring off successfully, and I felt that Vignoles was not his usual
confident self during them, whilst Ainsley, although he characterized
the curious ‘Fêtes Galantes’ with plenty of the required swagger,
was slightly hampered by a tendency to rush up to the notes and by what
seems to have become somewhat approximate French intonation. This is
a pity, since his French used to be near-perfect: he’s deeply immersed
in two huge operatic projects at present – Munich Festival’s ‘Saul’
and the Salzburg premiere of Henze’s new work ‘L’upupa,’ so perhaps
Chanson is rather on the back burner. My eleven year old son, attending
his first full recital (as opposed to rehearsals etc) was of the opinion
that ‘It’s not his French, that music’s just not any good.’ Out of the
mouths… perhaps. Lennox Berkeley’s ‘Tombeaux’ could be said to be cut
from the same cloth as the Poulenc, but here Ainsley was able to give
more bite to the language and a sharper focus to the phrasing, especially
in the short but complex sketches of ‘D’un Fleuve’ and ‘De Narcisse.’
It was a different story with
the final part of the recital, a group of Reynaldo Hahn which found
the singer in perfect form: I have regarded Hahn as a neglected genius
since I was about 15, and it’s wonderful to hear someone like Ainsley
singing this beautiful but somehow unfashionable music. ‘A Chloris’
is one of the gems of the repertoire, the Bach-like accompaniment played
here with great delicacy, and the words sung with this tenor’s habitual
unforced candour. This is something else which Ainsley and Vignoles
ought to be recording, although for now those who want to hear this
delectable song on disc should be more than happy with Susan Graham’s
version.
Hahn once said that he loved Taste,
and hated Exaggeration – but the adorable ‘Venezia’ is probably just
on the verge of the wrong side of what many people would regard as tasteful
– never mind, it’s a delightful piece, first performed on a gondola,
complete with piano and assorted acquaintances, all, the composer informs
us, ‘well lit.’ These ‘Chansons en dialect Venetien’ are about seduction,
youthful enjoyment and the passing of time, and they are not for every
singer: the Venetian dialect (not, as the programme informs us, translated
by the composer) is a challenge in itself, but it is one which my friend
from Padua tells me Ainsley met superbly (‘Only one littal mistek, but
hey! who mind?) – quite apart from the tricky temptations into camp
which such works present, temptations which of course both Vignoles
and Ainsley neatly avoided. I’ve heard Ainsley sing these songs a few
times now, and each time he does them differently – it would be so easy
to settle into a comfortable sameness with this music, which lies so
gratefully for his voice and with which he is clearly in such sympathy,
but that’s obviously not for him. I detected a little strain at the
top last time in ‘La Barcheta’ but here it was sung with perfect ease,
as was the gently erotic ‘La Biondina in gondoleta’ – I think I’ve said
before that Ainsley is just about the last person you could imagine
propelling (?) a gondola, but he certainly knows how to seduce with
his voice, and those gently nudging lines ‘Perchè, o Dio, che
bele cosse / Che g’ho ditto, e che g’ho fato!’ (Oh God, what lovely
things I said, and did!) were as unforcedly emphatic as they could possibly
be. The lightly sardonic ‘Che pecà!’ was sung with the semblance
of careless ease, and the final ‘La primavera’ with its ecstatic evocation
of springtime was sung and played with such fervour that you could almost
smell those roses and lilies – Ainsley just couldn’t resist a touch
of ‘I’m an Italian tenor’ at that lusty final line, but if you’ve got
the notes – and he certainly has – then why not flaunt ‘em?
The single encore was Quilter’s
magical setting of Edmund Waller’s ‘Goe, Lovely Rose’ and it was as
perfect an envoi as could be imagined, sung with tenderness and played
with elegance: ‘How small a part of time they share / That are so wondrous,
sweete and faire’. I’d think twice before describing either man as ‘sweete
and faire,’ but wondrous this recital certainly was.
Melanie Eskenazi
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