SPOTLIGHT ON YOUNG SINGERS

Warren Jones, Beste Kalender, and Benjamin Dickerson

Warren Jones has unsurpassed eloquence at the keyboard, and last night at Carnegie Weill Recital Hall, he waxed eloquent in speech as well, when he paid well-deserved tribute to mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne. This very week we are celebrating her 23rd annual glorification of the song recital in The Song Continues 2017.  As usual, there will be a recital, master classes, and a Saturday night all-out celebration in Zankel Hall. No one has done as much as our beloved Ms. Horne to ensure the survival of the art of the song.

Last night's Spotlight Recital shone the spotlight on two young artists whose participation in Stephanie Blythe's Master Class exactly one year ago is well remembered. Mezzo-soprano Beste Kalender continued to impress us with the same dedication to the text that she evinced last year, combined with the awareness of eroticism stressed by Ms. Blythe.

Baritone Benjamin Dickerson is also recalled for his fine performance in Das Land des Lachelns which we so enjoyed at the Manhattan School of Music when he was an undergraduate.  The review has been archived and is searchable.

The music on the program all came from the last half of the 19th c. and the early part of the 20th. It was an entirely satisfying choice of material that held our attention from beginning to end. Ms. Kalender opened the program with a quartet of songs by Francesco Santoliquido, a Neapolitan composer who wrote his own texts.  As an Italian, his focus on love is understandable!  The songs matched the romanticism of his text with a gorgeously melodic vocal line, a boon to the singer indeed.

The four songs composing I canti della sera were all about love and nature and Ms. Kalender impressed with her superb control of dynamics and her total immersion in the text. We were thrilled to be exposed to the work of a composer famous in his own country but heretofore unknown to us. We are looking forward to hearing more of his compositions.

Sieben fruhe Lieder by Alban Berg have been problematic for us in their compositional modernity. We have heard them performed at least a dozen times and always hope they will capture our ears. Actually, it is only "Die Nachtigall" that resonates with us and remains in our mind's ear. We did like the brief and heimlich "Im Zimmer" but it was over before we could sink into it. Mr. Dickerson sang them well in good clean German and appeared to know what he was singing about. But our attention was more taken with Mr. Jones'  ravishing playing of the evocative piano part which, in true modern fashion, was more interesting than the vocal line.

Brahms, on the other hand, made sure that the folk melodies of his vocal line would be circling the brain and providing continual delights. Readers may recall how fond we are of duets and we reveled in the glorious harmonies created by our two young artists. We loved the lively "Weg der Liebe" but we adored the barcarolle "Die Meere". How well balanced the two voices were!

The second half of the recital included a half dozen of Hugo Wolf's songs--Alte Weisen-- sung with great insight by Ms. Kalender. We were less familiar with some of these offerings than the Wolf songs that appear regularly on recital programs but Wolf's style is unmistakeable. And Ms. Kalender's style is one of generous dramatic interpretation. She portrayed six female characters-each one differently colored. We enjoyed the emasculating woman of "Tretet ein, hoher Krieger", and the teasing woman of "Du milchjunger Knabe". The singer was not afraid to make an ugly sound for the drunken "heroine" of "Das Kohlerweib ist trunken" and she allowed the old woman of "Wie glanzt der helle Mond" her dreams of paradise.

Mr. Dickerson gave us a highly rhythmic "Ouvre ton coeur" by Georges Bizet, evoking the Spain of one's fantasies. The legato lyricism of "Chanson d'avril" made a fine contrast. Reynaldo Hahn's "A Chloris" had some beautiful pianissimo moments, while Franz Liszt's "Oh! Quand je dors" seemed to include so many of the finer points that we have picked up from multiple master classes. His French was gorgeously Gallic throughout.

Closing the program were two duets (YES!) by Gabriel Faure.  The two artists took turns with lines from "Puisqu'ici-bas toute ame and then harmonized with passionate sentiment. The second duet was the frisky "Tarentelle" which brought us full circle back to Naples!

As encore, the pair gave us "Guten abend, gute nacht", Brahm's famous lullabye. We suspect the grateful audience might have demanded more but there is something so final about that song.

(c) meche kroop

RÖSCHMANN AND UCHIDA AT CARNEGIE HALL

Mitsuko Uchida and Dorothea Röschmann

Highly celebrated in Europe but too little heard in the United States, soprano Dorothea Röschmann made a welcome appearance at Carnegie Hall last night with equally celebrated Mitsuko Uchida as her collaborative pianist.

The all-German program focused on two song cycles by Robert Schumann, both composed in 1840, during that very productive year when he won the court case permitting him to marry his beloved Clara.

The evening's program began with his Liederkreis, Op.39, a dozen songs of varying moods, one lovelier than the next. Ms. Röschmann's burnished soprano is flawless and focused throughout the registers and her musicianship is undeniable. There is something elegant and tasteful about her manner. One could call it unassuming.

There were times when we wished for more drama in the storytelling, as in "Waldegespräch"; we longed to hear the difference in coloring between the words of the rider and the words of the Loreley. 

Ms. Uchida is a highly sensitive accompanist and often we heard more of the mood of the song in her piano. In "Mondnacht" she made moonlight audible, to our delight. "Auf einer Burg" had the right haunting feeling. The searching atmosphere of several songs was unmistakable and emotionally affecting.

The ending of "Im Walde" was given a chill by both artists who lent their skills to the storytelling.

The storytelling of the final work on the program grew in power. Frauenliebe und leben, Op.42 is one of our favorites and we are always happy to see it on a program. The challenge for the singer is to convince us that she is a young girl still playing games with her sisters who then grows into womanhood during the course of the cycle.

The timbre of Ms. Röschmann's instrument is very suited to melancholy and grief. She was incredibly moving in the final tragic "Nun hast du mir den ersten Schmerz getan" but she was less believable as the excited young girl who falls head over heels in love with a man.

She did inject a dose of excitement into "Ich kann's nicht fassen, nicht glauben" but we wanted to hear a different color when the girl gives voice to the man's words "Ich bin auf ewig dein". We enjoyed the serious tenor of "Du Ring an meinem Finger" as the woman realizes the import of her engagement. Similarly we appreciated the quiet joy as she let her husband know of her pregnancy in "Süsser Freund, du blickest".

In between the two Schumann cycles we heard Alban Berg's Sieben frühe Lieder which we have recently come to appreciate, thanks to a recital two weeks ago by Mary-Jane Lee (review archived). Ms. Röschmann furthered our appreciation, thanks to a sensitive delivery that captured the elusive quality of the songs.

We particularly enjoyed "Die Nachtigall" because of its haunting melody; we got goosebumps when Ms. Röschmann sang the phrase "Die Rosen aufgesprungen". "Im Zimmer" we loved for its atmosphere; the piano did a great job of emulating dancing flames from the little red fire.

It was during the encores that we most enjoyed Ms. Röschmann. She removed some of the restraints and let loose with a shattering performance of Schubert's "Nur wer die sehnsucht kennt" and Stern Auditorium was filled with more emotion and a greater amplitude of sound than was heard all evening. As if this were not enough, it was followed by "Kennst du das Land", set by Hugo Wolf.  One can never go wrong with the Mignonlieder from Goethe's Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre!

(c) meche kroop

A CHALLENGING PROGRAM BY LINDEMANN ARTISTS

Lachlan Glen, Dimitri Dover, Brandon Cedel, and Mary-Jane Lee

We await the annual Lindemann Recitals with great anticipation and we have never been disappointed.  Yesterday's recital was filled with delights both familiar and new. As much as we love to be turned on to works we've never heard, we get even greater pleasure when an artist gets us to understand works we've never favored.

Such was the case when soprano Mary-Jane Lee sang Alban Berg's Sieben Frühe Lieder, accompanied by Dimitri Dover. We have always found these songs inaccessible but Ms. Lee, by some alchemical process, managed to get inside the songs and to convey what we have never heard before. 

Ms. Lee has a soaring soprano that dazzles in the upper register.  But she also has an engaging manner and musicianship that made sense of Berg's strange vocal lines; they became rather haunting. Although our favorite will always be the melodic "Die Nachtigall" we also enjoyed the gemütlich atmosphere of "Im Zimmer".

Mr. Dover's immense contribution was to bring out the connection between the vocal line and the piano part. We also enjoyed his fine pianism in a later set of Rachmaninoff songs.  In "At night in my Garden" he established the mood of the sad weeping willow even before Ms. Lee began to tell the tale. His playing of the prelude of "In the silence of the secret night" was lavishly romantic.

As far as Ms. Lee's Russian diction, our Russian-speaking companion declared it very good.  Surely it sounded just fine to us!

The other artists on the program also excelled.  Bass-baritone Brandon Cedel formed a perfect partnership with collaborative pianist Lachlan Glen; they seemed to inhale and exhale in unison and we would swear that Mr. Glen was singing along in his head!

The most challenging work on the program was Schumann's lengthy ballad "Belsatzar" and Mr. Cedel confirmed our confidence in him as a master storyteller. The tale he told was one written by Heinrich Heine about an evil king and some mysterious handwriting on the wall. We still have goosebumps.

Mr. Cedel has a wonderful instrument of depth and amplitude with a finely textured vibrato, so different from the burly type. This allows him to sing more delicate songs like those in his first set which he performed with refinement and polish, achieving expressiveness with an economy of gesture.

We have never heard a man sing Mahler's  "Liebst du um Schönheit" and never even thought of it, but Mr. Cedel's delivery was heartfelt and meaningful. We loved Mr. Glen's pianistic passion in Schumann's "Requiem", quite a change from the delicate sensitivity displayed in the other songs.

This perfect pair closed the recital with a trio of Mahler songs. We have never had a problem relating to Mahler's output so we just relaxed and enjoyed "Um Mitternacht" with the haunting minor thirds in the piano. Mahler was surely inspired by Friedrich Rückert's poetry.

In "Urlicht" the piano and voice both reflected a depth of spiritual feeling. The pace was leisurely but the colors shifted rapidly. The final song was "Revelge" a story of the horrors of war told in march tempo. Mr. Glen's piano became wild and passionate. Mr. Cedel's performance was chilling in its effect. We believe that Mahler wanted us to feel horrified and the artists succeeded admirably.

All four artists have earned awards and recognition here and abroad. But what really matters to the audience is how they perform onstage at that particular moment. No one left disappointed.

(c) meche kroop

ELINA GARANČA SINGS OF LOVE

Elina Garanča

With undeniable artistry the stunning mezzo Elina Garanča took possession of the stage of Carnegie Hall and invited us into her world, and what a world that was!  Her all German program happily focused on the 19th century with a brief excursion into the early 20th c. but with the same flavor of German Romanticism that we cherish.

Five songs from Myrthen, Op.25 opened the program; all were composed during Robert Schumann's most creative period.  He had just won a lawsuit that enabled him to marry his beloved Clara and presented  a bound volume of these songs to her on the day before their wedding.  There is a strong feminine emphasis therein and Ms. Garanča sang them with great delicacy.  At this level of accomplishment the artist is expected to excel in musianship and the intelligent use of her instrument and Ms. Garanča completely lived up to our expectations, and then some.  What is unique to her is her total comfort onstage and her special way of inhabiting each song as if she herself were composing it on the spot.

For us, the highlight of the program was Schumann's Frauenliebe und leben, Op. 42.  In this heartbreaking song cycle, the text by Adelbert van Chamisso describes the phases of a young woman's infatuation, engagement, marriage, pregnancy, childbirth and early widowhood.  Several of our feminist friends have found the poetry offensive but we are able to see the work in its context and within the limitations of early 19th c. womanhood.  What is remarkable is Schumann's ability to distill all the varying emotions represented in the text and Ms. Garanča's ability to interpret these feelings.  Each song became an aria, not surprising because of the singer's success on the opera stage.

We have always found Alban Berg's music to be rather inaccessible but his Sieben frühe Lieder, composed when he was barely out of his teens and studying with Arnold Schoenberg, are replete with Late Romanticism, somewhat reminiscent of Mahler's.  We have become completely taken with "Die Nachtigall" and cannot get the melody out of our head.  And for us, that is a good sign!  That Mr. Berg later tried to disown these songs matters to us not at all.  Ms. G. made as much sense of the text as she did of the music and we plan on giving them all a good listen in the near future.

The final set on the program comprised a half-dozen of Richard Strauss' youthful songs, all written when he was courting Pauline de Ahna.  They are juicy songs, just dripping with youthful passion.  We especially enjoyed "Allerseelen", setting of a text by Hermann von Gilm, and "Heimliche Aufforderung", an invitation to a secret rendezvous, with text by John Henry Mackay.  Perhaps Mr. Mackay was fluent in German because the poetry scans and rhymes beautifully.

There were two encores but we didn't catch their identity.  One was likely by Brahms and might have been "An di Nachtigall" and the other was a lovely Latvian folk song.

It is extremely difficult to create a feeling of intimacy in a hall the size of Carnegie Hall and an artist of this caliber could not be presented in a small hall and still accommodate all her fans.  That being said, she created far more intimacy than most.  We found her accompanist Kevin Murphy to be somewhat lacking in his involvement with her.  We are accustomed to collaborative pianists who seem to breathe in tandem with the singer.  Mr. Murphy's pianism was more enjoyable during preludes and postludes when one could appreciate his involvement with the music; but he didn't seem to be totally in sync with the singing.

© meche kroop

FROM SNOW TO GLOW

Susanna Phillips             Myra Huang                             

It's astonishing how a gifted artist can bring you to appreciate works you never enjoyed before!  We will come to that but let's begin at the end of the completely satisfying recital given at the perfectly intimate Weill Recital Hall.  Toward the end of the encore, Peter DeRose's "Deep Purple", Ms. Phillips lost control of her emotions and could barely finish, eyes swimming with tears.  Having established incredible rapport with the audience all evening and having explained that her grandfather had sung that song for her about her grandmother, it came as no surprise that the audience went right along on her journey.  The standing ovation from the audience, fugitives from the blizzard outside, exceeded the standing ovation she received after the final set of songs.

And what a set that was!  Ms. Phillips clearly enjoyed singing the selections from Do You Sing, Mr. Twain? by the late Gordon Myers.  Eight pithy aphorisms were rather simply set with the exception of the final one, "On Rules of Writing" an ironic piece extolling brevity but marked by florid pianism and vocalism exceeding that of the baroque and bel canto periods.  Ms. Phillips and her dazzling piano partner Myra Huang had a ball with this as did the audience.

In fine French style, the pair delighted us with four Chausson songs, each a delicate gem, all sad and nostalgic.  Equally fine were "Ellens Gesang I, II and III" by Schubert, settings from Sir Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake, the final selection being the famous "Ave Maria".  These were followed by Alban Berg's Sieben frühe Lieder, songs we have previously found rather inaccessible.  Ms. Phillips' and Ms. Huang's artistry managed to bring out melodic elements heretofore unnoticed and we were filled with delight and gratitude; we are looking forward to hearing them again.  We do wish, however, that Ms. Phillips would pay more attention to the final consonants in German.  The d's and t's were firmly enunciated but the final "en"s were sometimes lost which would drive a native German speaker a bit crazy.

Our two artists spent a great deal of time and effort on Olivier Messsiaen's  Poemes pour Mi, Book II.  They are obviously highly meaningful to the pair but were somewhat less enchanting to us, both in subject matter and musical values.  Those who read Voce di Meche regularly will recall how essential melody is to our ears.  Still, we were riveted by the sincerity of the performance and would be willing to give the songs a second hearing.  Indeed, there are many works that grow on one with successive exposures.

No such forbearance was needed for the set of songs by Enrique Granados!  We adore the sound and style of the Spanish language and the attention the composer gave to melody.  The performance was charming and during the final selection, Ms. Huang distinguished herself with some very vibrant piano playing.

Taken as a whole, the recital was finely structured--some well-known favorites, some lesser-known works by well-known composers, some challenging pieces, some accessible ones, and some we've never heard before.  We have observed Ms. Phillips' artistic growth for several year now and and have always enjoyed her performances on the opera stage.  Indeed, we are anticipating a splendid performance as the Countess in Le nozze di Figaro in Santa Fe this summer.  But it was a special treat to see her on the recital stage, being her charming engaging self.

(c) meche kroop