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Recital
Wigmore Hall, London
7 April 2004
Simon Keenlyside
Malcolm Martineau
Schubert :
An die Leier
Stimme der Liebe
Fischerweise
Geheimes
Vom Mitleiden Mariä
Prometheus
Im Walde
Brahms :
Feldeinsamkeit
Nachtwandler
Es schauen die Blumen
Ständchen
Mahler :
Ich atmet' einen linder Duft
Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt
Ich ging mit Lust durch einen grünen Wald
Frühlingsmorgen
Scheiden und Meiden
Mahler : Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
- Wenn mein Schatz Hochzeit macht
- Ging heut' Morgen übers Feld
- Ich hab' ein glühend Messer
- Die zwei blauen Augen
What the critics say
A question of colour
Barry Millington, Evening Standard (8 April 2004)
One of Britain's finest baritones, Simon Keenlyside, is in demand all over the world for taxing opera roles as well as lieder recitals. The recent part of Prospero in Thomas Ades's The Tempest at the Royal Opera - in which he excelled - pushed him to the limit and beyond.
Has he been overdoing it? is the question that posed itself more than once during last night's recital at the Wigmore Hall. He is leaving for a holiday today - that much he told us from the platform when the words of an encored Schubert song eluded him. And his upper range was causing him increasing difficulty as the recital progressed. A handkerchief made frequent appearances, too.
If Keenlyside was indeed ailing, or exhausted, it might account for a perceptible lack of focus in many of the songs. The last of Mahler's Songs of a Wayfaring Lad, The Two Blue Eyes, quite movingly evoked the sadness of the rejected wanderer, lying under the linden tree. And yet words like "Leid" (sorrow) were not differentiated with the tragic colouring they require.
It was in this cycle that Keenlyside's informal platform manner came into its own. He wanders around the stage, looks up at the ceiling and round about, for all the world like the wayfaring apprentice of the songs. If it serves him well enough in the Mahler, and in lighter songs by Schubert and Brahms (the latter's Serenade was nicely done), it is a less obvious asset in the serious songs of those composers.
Still, Keenlyside has a gorgeously rich, coppery voice and a secure enough technique to convince most of the time.
Aided by Malcolm Martineau's detailed but atmospheric accompaniments, he succeeded in establishing the perfect mood for most of the songs in the Schubert and Brahms groups, and again in the selection of five of Mahler's Knaben Wunderhorn settings.
Those who resist the "interventionist" tendency in Lieder singing might have been content with such generalised evocations. But Keenlyside gave the impression of an intention to colour words, while lacking, on this occasion, the focus to implement it.
Andrew Clements for The Guardian, Friday April 9, 2004
http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/critic/review/0,,1188960,00.html
Three stars
”For a baritone who is such a natural theatrical animal, Simon Keenlyside had concocted a strikingly austere and reserved programme for his Wigmore recital with the pianist Malcolm Martineau. Nearly all the songs in his selection from Schubert, Brahms and Mahler struck the same melancholy note; perhaps it was a programme for connoisseurs, but there were few moments of light relief.”