Franz Schubert, Robert Schumann, and Hugo Wolf together form
German art song’s Holy Trinity. To the degree that the general
population knows anything about the intimate art of lieder
singing, it is almost exclusively through the works of these
three composers. And within these composers’s substantial
oeuvres, three song cycles have achieved conspicuous popularity.
They are, of course, Die Schöne Müllerin and Die Winterreise by
Schubert and Schumann’s Dichterliebe. Their fame rests largely on
the broad canvases the composers employed and also on the
exceptional craft that refines them. But there may be another
reason modern audiences have so embraced these cycles: they
possess, for lack of a better term, a “cinematic” quality, i.e.,
a strong sense of place and mood that’s vividly paired with bold
narration.
On Sunday, March 1, at a much anticipated recital on the campus
of the University of California, the English tenor Ian Bostridge
offered an account of Dichterliebe (“A Poet’s Love”) that was at
once unforced and probing. His all-Schumann program, which also
consisted of the Liederkreis (“Song Cycle”), op. 24, and assorted
other songs, gave American audiences their first opportunity to
hear this talented singer. (His New York debut took place two
weeks later, on Sunday, March 15, at the Frick Collection.) In
delivering a particularly compelling Dichterliebe, Bostridge
lived up to his billing and then some, but in the best show-biz
tradition, the thirty-two-year-old tenor kept his audience waiting for
the more famous work, delivering the greater