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Angelika Kirchschlager & Simon Keenlyside, Wigmore Hall, London

Adrian Jack
Monday 16 September 2002 00:00 BST
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Angelika Kirchschlager and Simon Keenlyside gave a recital of Lieder together at the Salzburg Festival last month and opened the Wigmore Hall's new season with the same programme on Friday. I wish more song recitalists would ask, as they did, for applause to be saved until the end of each half. Consequently the evening flowed like oil, and it needed to, for though interestingly planned, it was long and elaborate, with quite a few solo songs and duets that were relatively unfamiliar.

Three of these opened the programme – Schubert's "Lambertine" and "Der liebliche Stern", sung by Kirchschlager, and "Die Einsiedelei", sung by Keenlyside, who followed it with the much better-known "Der Wanderer an den Mond". Then came a group of duets – four by Schumann with a pale sort of charm, far below the level of inspiration in his best solo songs, and one by his younger contemporary, Peter Cornelius, called "Der beste Liebesbrief" which, with its scampering rhythmic unison and scherzo-like piano part, was more fun.

The real meat was yet to come, with a substantial selection from Hugo Wolf's Mörike Lieder. Wolf seems to have been rather under-performed here in recent times, though the Wigmore plans to commemorate the centenary of his death next year and Keenlyside sang some of his songs (marvellously) in the same hall earlier this summer. Kirchschlager's voice has a freshness, warmth and suppleness which equip her to do unusual justice to this music, too, and her restrained anguish in "Ein Stündlein wohl vor Tag" was effectively echoed by Keenlyside in "In der Frühe", which might be very freely rendered as "Insomnia". Why he fell short of the joy and wonder of "Auf ein Wanderung" I'm not sure, though Julius Drake played the delightfully excursive piano part forthrightly, if without much subtlety. Drake wasn't generally so positive, and significantly, the best thing he did was the mysterious sotto voce of "Lied eines Verliebten", a deeply troubled song, magnificently sung by Kirchschlager.

Wolf, in my book, composed the most compelling settings of the songs from Goethe's novel, Wilhelm Meister, whereas Schumann was sometimes enslaved rather than inspired by the same words. The exception was "Kennst du das Land", whose verses repeated to the same music enshrine an arching phrase of ineffable longing. Rather than making it wistful, or just touching, Kirchschlager sang it with urgency, which was still truthful.

Schubert's settings of the same Goethe songs include no fewer than six of "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt" (most famously set by Tchaikovsky), one a duet, true to the scene in Goethe's novel, which Kirchschlager and Keenlyside gave a rare airing.

They joined finally in a sequence of solo songs and duets by Brahms (with one gentle duet by Cornelius in the middle), lightening the mood, save for "Auf dem Kirchhofe", which Keenlyside sang with due solemnity. I doubt if I shall ever work out the point of the romp of a lover who wants to hunt and his sweetheart who wants to dance, but no doubt it appealed to Brahms; after all, he never married.

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