Author: Lindis Taylor
Wendy Dawn Thompson (mezzo-soprano) and friends at St Andrew’s
Opera arias and songs: Handel, Strauss, Mahler, Brahms, Mozart and others
Emma Sayers (piano) plus Amelia Berry and Bianca Andrew (sopranos), Michael Gray (tenor), Matthew Landreth (baritone). Presented by the New Zealand Opera Society (Wellington Branch)
St Andrew’s on The Terrace, Saturday 12 December 2009
This was to have been a showcase for Wendy Dawn Thompson, with the support of two younger singers Amelia Berry and Matt Landreth. But because Wendy was ailing (she had to cancel a Messiah a few days before) it was decided to reduce her load by the inclusion of a couple of other singers. They were Bianca Andrew and Michael Gray.
It made a concert of greater variety even if we were deprived of more singing by the main star.
Wendy opened the evening with ‘Ombra mai fu’, Handel’s Largo (actually marked ‘Larghetto’) from Serse (Xerxes), handling the Persian King’s castrato role in a rich, almost fruity voice, for some tastes perhaps a little too heavy with vibrato; no doubt it was a symptom of her ailment. Her higher notes were warm and clear however. She followed it with ‘Behold, … O Thou that tellest’ from Messiah, which revealed a somewhat clearer performance. The rest of her offerings came in the second half of the concert: four Strauss lieder, all love songs of different characters. Gefunden, innocence and simplicity in a Goethe lyric in which a plant symbolizes the poet’s resolve to ensure his love’s survival by digging it up carefully and planting it in his garden. Nachtgang, mildly salacious, and Heimliche Aufforderung which approached R18, Wendy sang with nicely varied timbres and delicate dynamic control. Morgen was the best known song: Emma Sayers’s introduction, as delightfully coloured as throughout, announced a languid tempo with suggestive, expectant pauses with the subtle phrasing that all her performances displayed.
Amelia Berry sang two Mahler songs from his Rückertlieder. They showed some signs of unevenness of tone and occasional suspect intonation, but her voice is attractive and her dramatic talent (I last head her in the title role in the New Zealand School of Music’s production of Handel’s Semele mid-year) a clear asset. She sang ‘Ruhe sanft’ from Mozart’s Zaïde (which I also heard her sing at the Wellington Aria Competition in August). She brought to it a good feeling for its warm lyricism though the high notes taxed her somewhat. She made a good fist of Baïlero too. In both songs one competes with particularly beautiful recorded renderings, not least by Kiri Te Kanawa: they colour ones impressions though they shouldn’t.
Here, as throughout the programme I found my ear caught by the beautiful, piano playing of Emma Sayers, creating vivid, contrasting orchestral colours in different parts of the keyboard.
Amelia’s last song was ‘Chi il bel sogno di Doretta’ from La Rondine; it wasn’t clear to me what happened at the beginning as she twice broke off to start again after a couple of bars. Much of it lies high and her voice thinned on those notes; though, as with the Mozart and Canteloube pieces earlier, there was a real feeling for the idiom.
Bianca Andrew also sang in Semele, as Ino. She opened her bracket with Cherubino’s aria, ‘Non so piu’, from The Marriage of Figaro, giving full rein to her character’s unruly hormones, with open agitation in her voice. Pastoral calm followed with The Sally Gardens in Britten’s arrangement, two Brahms lieder – Liebestreu and ‘Wir wandelten’. She sang them with an easy charm, occasionally resting her arm on the piano lid, handling the phrasing comfortably; they suited her voice excellently. And though she sang the Habanera from Carmen musically, she didn’t quite capture its dangerous sexuality.
Michael Gray opened his selection with Tosti’s La serenata, confident and polished, though not especially Italianate in character. Britten’s Holy Sonnets of John Donne on the other hand were sung with a sure instinct for their idiom and the poetry; his performance might have erred in the sense of dramatic feeling and emphasis, but for me, who doesn’t warm particularly to this sort of Britten, his performance, with its clear articulation, became meaningful.
In the opera, Don Ottavio’s ‘Il mio tesoro’ seems to hold up the drama, but Gray made a great deal of it.
Matthew Landreth’s share of the evening opened with Lilburn’s cycle of six songs, Sings Harry. (incidentally, there are 12 poems in Glover’s sequence as published in the 1971 edition of Enter without knocking, counting as one the three parts of Songs – ‘These songs will not stand’; if you want to refresh your acquaintance with Glover, look at Gordon Ogilvie’s full-blooded entry in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography – accessible on the Internet).
Both the colour of his very natural baritone (never mind they were written for tenor) and his instinctive feel for the songs made their performance a delight. The skill of a poetry reader in ‘When I am old’, a deeply nostalgic ‘Once the days were clear’, and those quintessential Glover lines ‘For the tide comes and the tide goes and the wind blows’ he articulated as movingly as anyone I have heard.
Landreth made an effortless job of ‘O du mein holder Abendstern’ from Tannhäuser, with fine pianissimo control; but was not quite as comfortable in ‘Se vuol ballare’.
This concert didn’t draw the audience it deserved, both on account of Wendy Dawn, or of the four others, or the splendid pianist or the intrinsic delight of the happily haphazard programme.
Messiaen’s La nativité du Seigneur from organist Richard Apperley
Cathedral of St Paul, Wellington, Friday 4 December 2009
This was the third year that Anglican Cathedral has presented Messiaen’s Christmas celebration on the big organ. Though it didn’t draw as big an audience as Messiah a week earlier at the other cathedral, the Happy Few enjoyed a commanding and brightly coloured account of Messiaen’s early masterpiece. It was written in the year of my birth, though I was much older that he was at its composition (28) when I first got to know Messiaen – probably over 40.
Though the organ at St Paul’s is capable of producing the characteristic sounds of the English organ, it is strong in vivid brass and treble woodwind stops, well adapted to the qualities of post-Romantic French organ music, and it was these that attracted Richard Apperley in the performance.
This characteristic was vividly heard at the start of the first piece, La vierge et l’enfant, opening with trembling, tiny, bell-like sounds, conveying the dim, cold atmosphere of the wintery manger. And Desseins éternels, with the presence of constant underpinning of deep pedal notes, Apperley again depicted a subdued feeling of awe, of the divine mystery.
It was with Le Verbe that the organ first expressed itself in bolder diapason sounds, though after a mere three minutes or so, Messiaen offers a musical version of the Word, employing the cornet stop in gentle, meandering lines, over obscure pedal harmonies.
Apperley’s penchant for piercing treble registrations emerged again in Les Anges, culminating in an imagining of angels fluttering their wings.
From that, the ugly descent to Jésus accepte la souffrance, was a remarkable experience, with fearful, heavy pedals treading out Christ’s three burdens of suffering.
I have been familiar with Marie-Claire Alain’s recorded performance (among others); the motion of a swaying procession of the Magi to be found in her playing makes it one of the most singular episodes; I did not feel quite that effect in Apperley’s playing. While his registrations were brighter, he nevertheless captured the sense of mystery, of being drawn towards something of which the wise men have only an uneasy premonition.
The last part, Dieu parmi nous, always seems a most remarkable creation, with its feeling of chaotic mingling of many elements, sparkling, fast-fingered joyousness, toccata-like episodes; Apperley distinguished himself here through the vivid contrasts he presented on different manuals, loud, penetrating stops riding over a subdued murmuring background, and the series of Bachian chordal passages, eventually building to a growing ecstasy with the series of teasingly unresolved chords that creates the kind of organ peroration that seems fundamental to the French school and to the French flair for dramatizing religious experiences. It was fully realized in this brilliant performance.
St Andrew’s: Valerie Rigg and Tessa Olivier in Vitali Chaconne and Prokofiev sonata
Chaconne in G minor (Tomaso Vitali); Violin sonata No 2, Op 94 (Prokofiev)
Valerie Rigg (violin) and Tessa Olivier (piano)
St Andrew’s on The Terrace, Wednesday 2 December 2009
This turned out to be a highly impressive and enjoyable recital of two famous works.
Valerie Rigg played with the NZSO for 19 years, eventually as principal first violin, and she also had a professional career in England, Germany and Canada. She now lives again in Wellington.
She and Tessa Olivier (who emigrated from South Africa in 2002) played these pieces at a September concert at Old St Paul’s, which I heard. This week’s performance displayed a noticeable advance in their playing of both pieces.
Wikipedia states that the manuscript ascribed the Chaconne to “one ‘Tommaso Vitallino’ who may or may not be Vitali” (his first name is spelt variously with one or two ‘m’s). Further, Wikipedia notes that it “is generally known in a heavily recomposed version by German violinist Ferdinand David” who, as you know, was the concertmaster of the Gewandhaus Orchestra and the dedicatee and first performer of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. In fact, some believe it could have been a pastiche by David, of several motifs by obscure Baroque composers; it appeared in a collection edited by David called Die Hoch Schule des Violinspiels.
In 1911 it was further ‘enhanced’ by French violinist Léopold Charlier who produced what is described as an even more taxing version. It was this that Valerie and Tessa played.
If we accept the kernel of the composition as authentic, the original piece could predate Bach’s solo violin works, since Tomaso was born 20 years before Bach; but it sounds far more ‘modern’ than Bach’s Chaconne, for example, because of the frequent and very radical series of modulations through which the variations move, a rather uncommon baroque procedure. In fact, scholars note that none of Vitali’s authenticated works are remotely like the Chaconne.
It has been called ‘astounding’, ‘a gripping tour de force’; that’s what I thought.
The Chaconne became very popular after its emergence through Ferdinand David, though I cannot ever recall hearing it played live; regardless of its provenance, it deserves to be included in violin recitals, and I welcomed this opportunity to hear it, both at Old St Paul’s and at St Andrew’s.
It was not a performance quite to compare with Milstein or Heifetz perhaps; but merely to play it marks out a violinist as pretty distinguished for it is indeed a highly challenging piece technically. Valerie Rigg had its measure, confidently, right from the stately first announcement of the main theme, in terms of its musical energy and her approach to its varied tempi and pyrotechnic elements that become increasingly hair-raising.
Tessa Olivier’s piano accompaniment, in the nature of a continuo but with a lot of individual interest as piano partner, was accurate and sympathetic, though there were moments when the two seemed rhythmically not quite at one.
The same boldness and confidence characterised their playing of Prokofiev’s second sonata which was his own arrangement of his Flute Sonata (so it’s normally labelled Op 94b). Prokofiev’s music demands high technical skill, and a rhythmic pulse and momentum that exists in a strange kind of neutral emotional environment. In spite of the variety in the treatment of the themes and their undeniable musical interest, there remains a feeling of non-commitment – not on the part of the players but in the music itself.
The second movement has the feel of a moto perpetuo, in a spirit that is brusque and staccato; the performance was not perfect but splendidly outgoing and committed. Perhaps the real test lay in the playing of the calm Andante movement, beautifully realised through a common vision that maintained a steady focus. In the last movement – Allegro con brio – when writing originally conceived for flute was never far away, its pace was a little less exuberant than I was familiar with; but it gave Prokofiev more space, becoming even more appropriate and successful as a violin piece, combining lyricism with virtuosity. Those qualities, as in the first two movements, were the final demonstration of the admirable interpretative skills of these two musicians.
Messiah from Kapiti Chamber Choir
Messiah by Handel. Conducted by Guy Jansen with Kapiti Chamber Choir, members of the former Bel Canto and friends, and an orchestra
Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Sunday 29 November 2009
It looked as if this would be the first year, in living memory, that none of our choirs had scheduled a Messiah, when news came of a performance by the Kapiti Chamber Choir, one of Peter Godfrey’s former choirs. Conducted by Guy Jansen, it was likely to be as fine a performance as any we have heard, and so it has transpired.
There were two performances: the first on Sunday 22 November at Paraparaumu and the second in Wellington on the 29th. Today, it is more common to use rather smaller choral forces than a few decades ago when huge Victorian choirs were favoured. The performances in Handel’s time didn’t exceed 40 or so. On Sunday there were 40 singers.
The result was one of the most splendid performances I’ve heard.
Part of the secret was the addition of members of the former Bel Canto choir and friends: that was an ensemble of mainly professional solo voices, founded by Jansen in 1987 and disbanded in 1998 after he left to teach at the University of Queensland (what a shame no New Zealand university grabbed him).
They added to the strength and spirit of the entire ensemble, sharpening attack, dramatizing dynamics and expression, and generating an exciting, vivid sound; the distinct choral groups allowed the music to be passed from one to another in an electrifying, dramatic way; and each group took certain choruses on its own. With Jansen’s inspiring leadership, they produced sounds ranging from magical calm to awful fury. I used to feel at times that Bel Canto’s drawback lay in the strength and individuality of many of the voices, not properly merged in a uniform sound. It was not evident here.
All the solo roles were taken by eight Bel Canto (and friends) singers, almost all in fine voice; they happen to be still among Wellington’s best singers.
One of the things he drew attention to in his pre-concert talk, was the belief that success lay in rooting the singing in the meaning of the words, their sounds and rhythms. And that became very clear in the performance; it lent every number, every line, its particular character; clarity of diction too benefitted from this attention. It struck me first during the chorus’s singing of ‘Every Valley’. Care with sense and dynamics, word colours, rhythms and ornaments were all gained from the attention paid to this aspect.
Particularly striking were sopranos Janey MacKenzie (‘How beautiful are the feet’: ethereal high notes) and Barbara Graham whose bracket was confined to those following the Pastoral symphony ending emotionally in quite operatic character in ‘Rejoice greatly’.
However, I dare not make distinctions between the others, basses Roger Wilson (fearsome in ‘Thus saith the Lord’ and clarion high notes in ‘The trumpet shall sound’) and Rodney Macann (who joined Alison Hodge in ‘But who may abide…’, alternating benevolence and wrath, and his own ‘Why do the nations’, all outrage); and tenors Ed Hintz (pure high notes in the opening ‘Comfort Ye’) and John Beaglehole who sang ‘Thy rebuke hath broken his heart’ with real anguish. Soprano Lesley Graham sang two major arias in Part 3, ‘I know that my redeemer liveth’ and ‘If God be for us’; the two altos: Alison Hodge’s ardent ‘O thou that tellest’ was embellished with a fine violin obbligato, while Denise Wilson shared ‘He shall feed his flock’ capably with Janey MacKenzie.
The small orchestra played like professionals; strings were polished, confident and energetic, oboes lovely, trumpets commanding; and Jonathan Berkahn’s contribution to continuo was often marked, and though I was not aware at the time because his name was not in the programme, it was Douglas Mews who opened up the main organ to add to the excitement of the final numbers, creating an ecstasy of religious triumphalism. There was a standing ovation.
(An expansion of the review in The Dominion Post)
Lunchtime at St Andrew’s: Mozart Trio, Strauss Violin Sonata
Mozart: Trio in E flat, K 498 (‘Kegelstatt’) with violin in place of clarinet; Violin Sonata in E flat, Op 18 (Strauss)
Cristina Vaszilcsin (violin), Peter Garrity (viola), Catherine McKay (piano)
St Andrew’s on The Terrace, Wednesday 25 November 2009
These three players have been tantalizing us with Strauss’s youthful, highly coloured violin sonata, with performances of just the first two movements (at Paekakariki) and of the Improvisation movement alone (at the Friends of the NZSO concert a week earlier); I’d heard both. Here at last we heard the whole thing, though it was not without its curiosity even here.
As the players prepared to start the second movement (Improvisation), Cristina dashed off to get her mute; she then played her first two notes – alone; Catherine got up from the piano and went out and when she didn’t come straight back Cristina left too. Time passed. Concert organizer Marjan Waardenberg went out too and we waited; one or two people left, but the first movement had been so compelling that almost all remained seated, hopefully. A good five minutes later they all returned and calmly began the second movement.
Catherine had had a nose-bleed.
It was the energy and rapport displayed by these two players that was striking; one sensed a strong shared commitment to and sympathy for the sonata which is an early work, written aged about 23, and not universally admired; it is given to exploiting both Strauss’s fecund compositional gifts, a romantic imagination fed by a growing admiration for the aesthetic of Wagner and Liszt; I found it curious that I was here and there reminded of Franck’s sonata, even though Strauss could hardly have known it since it was written only a year earlier.
Even though marked Andante, the first movement creates a passionate impression that belies the actual underlying tempo, and it was this impulse and thrust that animated the performance most strongly. The second movement suffered not the least from the pianist’s brief ailment; in fact it was as if the problem inspired an even more rhapsodic, expansive performance, filled with graceful phrasing and ecstatic piano filigree supporting the violin’s more legato lines.
The third movement was the place for even more highly romantic effects, endless scales and decorative arpeggios played as if they were much more than flashy gestures, then a middle section where the violin became playful in a perfectly wholehearted way. There was always the sense of impassioned momentum that sustained a constant awareness of the larger picture.
They had begun the concert with Mozart’s wonderful clarinet trio, with the clarinet replaced by Vaszilcsin’s violin. Not only did the violin quite seduce me with a feeling that this might well have really been the sound Mozart had in mind, so natural and gorgeous was it, but the different environment also lent the viola greater distinction than it had, at least in the traditional sounds lodged in my mind, alongside the clarinet.
In the Rondeaux allegretto (last movement) the violin’s summery joy and warmth led to a feeling of deep, if very histrionic, soulfulness which the viola reflected in its lovely duo with piano in the middle section. I am given to exclaiming about performances that are unlikely to be excelled this year, but this was such a performance, of two wonderful works that are too rarely heard.
Musica Sacra: These Distracted Times
Directed by Robert Oliver; comprising Baroque Voices (director: Pepe Becker) and Academia Sanctae Mariae (led by Gregory Squire)
Music by Henry and William Lawes, John Jenkins, Richard Dering, Thomas Tomkins, Matthew Locke
St Mary of the Angels, Wellington; Sunday 22 November 2009
I found myself unusually intrigued by the last concert of Musica Sacra’s 2009 series, dwelling on the music of the Civil War period in England in the mid-17th century; for interest in English music has tended to wane with the death of the composers who were active in Elizabeth’s and James I’s reigns, such as Orlando Gibbons, Peter Philips, Thomas Campion, John Dowland…
Though this concert included music from both before and after those 20 years of strife and the subsequent Commonwealth – the 1640s and 50s (Richard Dering was dead by 1630 and Matthew Locke was born in 1630 and lived till 1677), most of the music was touched in some way by either the gathering clouds or by the strife itself. Catholic liturgical music was banned and most musical composition was directed towards domestic music; the Puritans did not object to music per se.
Those central to the years of the Civil War were John Jenkins who lived from 1592 till 1678, and Henry and William Lawes (though William was killed in battle in 1645).
The older brother, Henry, is presumably well known to Wellingtonians as a result of the very rich Milton collection in the Turnbull Library which has been expanded to encompass Milton’s literary, musical and political contemporaries. Milton’s masque Comus was written to be set by Henry on commission from the Earl of Bridgewater. Though his music was lost, an adaptation of Comus was later set by Thomas Arne and was very popular; that version was performed in Wellington a few years ago by an opera group, Brio, led by Lesley Graham.
Milton wrote a Sonnet, his No 13*, in praise of Henry Lawes for completing a certain play. It first appeared as the introduction to Henry and William Lawes’s Choice Psalms of 1648.
Henry Lawes’s setting of Psalm 9, ‘Thee and thy wondrous deeds’ opened the concert: a setting for five voices, strings and organ, which set the tone for the evening. It began with Pepe Becker, at her peak, a pure yet warm soprano, so fluid and brilliant that one feared she would outshine the other singers. But they did match her in their different, perhaps not quite as remarkable, ways; in duet with her, tenor John Fraser held his own, and both Jane McKinlay and alto Andrea Cochrane established themselves confidently in solo passages as well as in the several trios involving two or three women.
Bass David Morriss in particular has emerged with greater confidence and his lower voice has gained splendid strength; in Locke’s ‘Ad te levavi’ (Psalm 122), and elsewhere, he impressed with skillfully decorated lines.
The programme took the form of Psalm settings and several Latin motets with continuo, by Dering (most of whose life was spent outside England) and Locke; these were interspersed with readings by Morriss. Although the amplification made some words hard to catch, they were amusing and pertinent, especially those from Nicholas L’Estrange’s collections of anecdotes (generally the decent ones, which are in the minority) and his brother, Roger’s Truth and Loyalty Vindicated.
One related a protest by ‘One Mr Saunders’ who remonstrated with people talking during an instrumental performance: “This is not vocal music,” he is reported crying out.
The two groups involved in Musica Sacra are alike in their sensitivity to the style of the music they play and achieve a degree of harmony of tone as vocal and instrumental ensembles that is remarkable. The three women, sopranos Becker and McKinlay, and alto Cochrane, created an especially beautiful blend in the Matthew Locke motet ‘Audi Domine’; but the five together achieved almost as much perfection.
The instrumental ensemble accompanied, in various configurations, sometimes both violins, Greg Squire and Shelley Wilkinson, Robert Oliver on bass viol and Douglas Mews on the chamber organ; sometimes the organ alone. As well as contributing an ultimate polish and balance to the singing; they played several purely instrumental pieces such as a Fantasy Suite by John Jenkins (involving demanding virtuosity) and two sonatas by William Lawes for all the instruments.
Mews played a solo piece for organ by Thomas Tomkins which gave the concert its name: A Sad Pavane for These Distracted Times; Tomkins’s life extended from the last 20 years of Elizabeth’s reign till 1656. He was a Royalist and the Pavane was composed a few days after the execution of Charles I in 1649; sounding from a somewhat earlier, happier time, this was a beautiful, intelligent performance, its tone elegiac and lamenting.
Even if interest in the less familiar music of the past is driven to some degree by the frustrations felt by audiences at much of the music of the past century, the benefits are huge; as with this concert, the explorations are not only unearthing less-known music of famous composers and obscure composers who were the links between many of the greats, but are also bringing to life music from totally neglected periods such as the early 17th century.
We are so lucky to live in a period when so much musical exploration is happening, unprecedented in any earlier time. For none of the composers in this concert was familiar to any but the musical historian till recently, and all are worth getting to know.
*John Milton’s Sonnet No XIII (to Henry Lawes)
Harry whose tuneful and well measured song
First taught our English Musick how to span
Words with just note and accent, not to scan
With Midas Ears, committing short and long;
Thy worth and skill exempts thee from the throng,
With praise anough for Envy to look wan;
To after-age thou shalt be writ the man,
That with smooth aire could’st humor best our tongue.
Thou honour’st Verse, and Verse must lend her wing
To honour thee, the Priest of Phoebus Quire
That tun’st their happiest lines in Hymn, or Story.
Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher
Then his Casella, whom he woo’d to sing,
Met in the milder shades of Purgatory.
Jared Holt sings Dichterliebe at St Andrew’s
Scriabin’s Piano Sonata No 2 and Dichterliebe, Op 48 (Schumann)
Jared Holt (baritone) and Nicole Chao (piano)
St Andrew’s on The Terrace, lunchtime, Wednesday18 November 2009
Jared Holt won the Mobil Song Quest in 2000, proceeded to the Royal College of Music in London and through the mid 2000s sang roles at Covent Garden, Glyndebourne and Opera Australia. In September/October he sang Papageno in Southern Opera’s The Magic Flute.
At Canterbury University he took a law degree and has now returned to pursue that as his principal livelihood, in Wellington. Happily, he still sings, in opera and in song recital.
The recital began with the pianist alone, playing Scriabin’s Second Piano Sonata, whose first movement is markedly Lisztian, of the more romantic of the Années de Pèlerinage; though It is flavoured by Scriabin’s melodic fingerprints and the rising augmented fourths and fifths that recur so affectingly in much of his music. Chao’s playing was filled with unaffected rubato, and she easily evoked visions of bare birches and snow-covered pines. Though sometimes compared with his contemporary Rachmaninov, how different, more openly emotional, is Scriabin’s music. The Presto second movement, influenced by another area of Liszt’s genius, was under less control both in dynamics and in clarity at speed; and the boomy acoustic didn’t help. Nevertheless, it was a performance that captured Scriabin’s spirit and his romantic character most satisfyingly.
Though comprising sixteen songs, Dichterliebe is not a long cycle; each song is quite concise, none of Heine’s poems is indulgent and nor does Schumann allow himself to expand the material by repeating lines or stanzas: there is no time for interest to flag,
Though primarily an opera singer, this concert showed a gift in the song repertoire which is supported by taste and finesse, and excellent German diction. However, though St Andrew’s has its virtues, it is given to amplifying bass orchestral sounds as well as distorting focus when voices are too pushed.
I wondered whether he was finding it difficult to judge the responsiveness of the acoustic or was sometimes over-reacting to the occasional emphatic passage from the piano, in his tendency to drive his voice too hard, but in truth, I found the piano’s role always sensitive and supportive, rising and falling in response to the emotion, for example in the striding, widely-spaced melody of ‘Aus alten Märchen winkt es’.
When he went beyond a mezzo-forte in his upper register, vocal focus suffered. That was evident right from the first song, and in ‘Die Rose, die Lillie,,,’, but in the middle register, things were easy and the real quality of his voice could be enjoyed. The calmer, more spoken quality employed in ‘Wenn ich in deine Augen…’, even high up, resulted in a beautifully expressed emotion.
There was never any doubting Holt’s command of his resources or his grasp of the poet’s or the composer’s meaning and intent. If only there was a regular song recital series, comparable to Wellington Chamber Music’s Sunday chamber music series, in which we could enjoy the singing of Wellington’s many excellent singers in the huge repertoire of classical song, live performance of which has become something foreign to many music lovers.