Barbara Bonney, the celebrated American soprano, recently put out a new album, titled While I Dream. It contains Schumann’s song-cycle Dichterliebe (Poet’s Love) and a dozen songs of Liszt. The cover shows Bonney in a rich, ornate gown reclining on what appears to be a bed of satin. A thin, delicate necklace plays around her … forehead. Odd, but they didn’t do this with Schumann-Heink.
Bonney, however, like that not-so-glamorous earlier singer, is a superb performer, as she proved in her recent recital at Carnegie Hall. The program consisted of much of the music from the new album, starting with Dichterliebe. At the piano was the British accompanist Malcolm Martineau (although the pianist heard on the recording is Antonio Pappano, who is best known as a conductor). The Bonney-Martineau recital did not take place in Carnegie’s little Weill Recital Hall—perfect for a Liederabend—but in the main auditorium. What one loses in intimacy, one gains in revenue—and Bonney puts fannies in the seats. But a good lieder singer must create his own intimacy, even if his venue is Yankee Stadium. This, Bonney does.
It is a first-rate voice, governed by a first-rate technique. That voice is light and lyrical, but it has plenty of body. Dichterliebe requires everything a singer has, including great mental discipline and imagination. Bonney has clearly thought deeply about these songs, yet she presents them naturally. A lieder singer must walk a thin line: sing these songs too cerebrally, and you choke the music out of them; sing them too unreflectively, and you’re just skimming the surface. Bonney gets it right. Her singing is inward—she is thinking to herself, and talking to herself—while at the same time communicating with the audience. This is no easy trick.
Martineau is a help. He is especially good at keeping the music moving forward, and he joins the singer in talking to us, the audience. He has those two vital accompanist’s qualities: sensitivity and supportiveness. He is neither wimpily submissive nor overpowering.
It’s true that, in a song like “Ich grolle nicht,” one is used to a little more heft. Bonney doesn’t have heft—but she makes up for it in other ways, having many musical and vocal tools. For example, she can deliver startling power in the top notes—this is not just a matter of “carrying” or “penetrating”; no, this is real power, volume. And her natural gifts shine through in songs like “Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen,” which was almost unbearably wistful. “Aus alten Märchen winkt es” had a fresh, clean-scrubbed beauty (very Bonneyesque). In Dichterliebe, a singer must traverse a great expressive range, and Bonney never faltered.
I must say, I had never quite realized what a profoundly great work Dichterliebe is—and if a performance can leave you thinking and talking about the composer’s achievement, that’s not bad.
Garrick Ohlsson is the American pianist some people think of as Polish: he has made a specialty of Chopin—tackling that composer’s entire oeuvre—and he is said to be something of a hero, or adopted son, in Poland. At Carnegie Hall, he set out a Rachmaninoff-centered program, and a fascinating program it was—old-fashioned (which, from me, is no insult).
It began with one of Rachmaninoff’s greatest transcriptions, his little suite from Bach’s Violin Partita in E Major. Rachmaninoff—who wrote for himself, as well as posterity—relished playing this music, and so did many other pianists of his time, and after. But then rose up the back-to-nature gang—the “originalists,” the primitivists—and anyone even thinking of playing or enjoying this transcription, or Busoni, was condemned as a philistine and heretic. Ohlsson is blessedly immune from such pressures.
His playing, however, was disappointing: it was indistinct, bland, and sloppy. There were many missed notes, which was surprising from such an accomplished technician. Also, it was overpedaled, adding to the impression of muddiness and sluggishness. A lack of clarity deprived these pieces of their sparkle and joy. This is a Rachmaninoff transcription, yes—but it’s also Bach’s E-major partita. Ohlsson’s account was not Baroque enough, and it wasn’t acceptable as Rachmaninoff, either.
Then came Mendelssohn’s Variations sérieuses, in which Ohlsson was better, though still indifferent. The variations in his hands were rather blurry and overwrought, and the marvelous ending was without intensity and pleasure.
Closing the first half of the recital were two small works by the American composer John Adams (of Death of Klinghoffer fame, and infamy). The first of these pieces was China Gates, from 1977, and the second was American Berserk, written for Ohlsson and commissioned by Carnegie Hall (and receiving its world premiere). For both pieces, Ohlsson used sheet music, complete with page-turner. I have asked before: Why do they do this? Composers give works to performers, and the performers don’t bother to memorize them, instead nodding to their page-turner. Don’t the composers mind? The new Adams piece, for example, was only a few minutes long.
China Gates is a minimalist job, requiring legato and lull; Ohlsson played it rather choppily. The new piece—American Berserk—is well titled, raucous, and it reminded me very much of the Four Occasional Pieces of John Harbison, attractively recorded by the pianist Patricia Goodson. Ohlsson, sadly, did not afford the work an especially felicitous debut: it was rather undifferentiated, tossed off—just noisy. Adams, upon joining Ohlsson onstage, gave a little sarcastic bow to the American flag standing in the corner.
After intermission, Ohlsson did something exceedingly and impressively daring: or rather, he had already done so, in his programming. Of all the Rachmaninoff preludes in the world, he chose the two most popular (and, arguably, most hackneyed): the C-sharp minor and the G minor. This, like the program in its entirety, showed a remarkable freedom of thought. The C-sharp minor was, in fact, well played, in part because it was well weighted—solid and grand. The G minor was competent, but did not electrify or jolt as it might have.
Then came Rachmaninoff’s famous transcription of the Scherzo from Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ohlsson was still sluggish and inaccurate, simply lacking the fingers to play this piece as it should be played, which is to say, clearly, nimbly, and astonishingly. Evgeny Kissin had performed the piece in this hall a few months before; Ohlsson suffered badly from the comparison.
But wait: ending the printed program was Rachmaninoff’s Sonata No. 2 in B-flat minor, and it was assured, authoritative, and magnificent. It was as though a different pianist had sat down at the piano. Ohlsson played with fire and heart, with understanding and elegance. Rarely does this work receive so inspired and polished a reading. Following that, Ohlsson’s first encore was Rachmaninoff’s G-sharp-minor prelude—exquisite, haunting.
Funny old world, then. A funny old profession, too. One of my truisms is that it always pays to show up at the concert hall or opera house: you never know what will happen. Sometimes a humble performer will rise to greatness; sometimes a great one will be laid low. There is a related truism: it pays to stay all the way through. Again, you never know what might transpire. Anyone leaving the Ohlsson recital before the sonata could never have believed that it would go so very well.
The young conductor Roberto Abbado has one of the most famous names in his business: he is the nephew of Claudio, who is just completing his tenure with the Berlin Philharmonic. Whether that name has been a burden or boon—or both—Roberto is enjoying a solid career, and he appeared in Carnegie Hall with the Philadelphia Orchestra, of which he is a regular guest.
They began with one of Prokofiev’s most evocative and appealing works, the Overture on Hebrew Themes. Predictably, there was that unusual, and unusually beautiful, Philadelphia sound: even from a reduced orchestra. The performance, however, was dull—limp—for such a colorful and beguiling piece. It failed to “swing.”
The soloist of the evening was a young and increasingly popular Russian violinist, Vadim Repin. He played the Tchaikovsky concerto, which, for such a staple and alleged bore, is not heard terribly often in the concert hall, at least in my experience. From his first notes, Repin showed what can only be called musical sense—unteachable and invaluable. In phrasing, dynamics, and temper, he knew what he was doing, instinctively. Either one is musical or one is not: and Repin is. As for his sound, it is warm and burnished—at times, viola-like. It is often not a clean or clear sound, how- ever.
The opening Allegro was not without its problems. For one thing, coordination between soloist and orchestra was poor (and for this, Abbado was chiefly to blame). In addition, the conductor’s dynamics came off as artificial and plotted—contrived—rather than natural or inevitable. In the slow movement, Repin’s intonation was suspect, as he was consistently on the low side. The Philadelphia’s famed woodwind section, however, shone. Finally, in the Allegro vivacissimo, Abbado and Repin had trouble establishing tempo—and the latter made some truly ugly sounds.
Yet Repin is undeniably an impressive young violinist—among many others—and it is gratifying to have him on the scene.
The second half of the program was devoted to the Brahms First Symphony. This is a work that the Philadelphians should be able to play virtually on autopilot—but Roberto Abbado still had plenty of chances to botch it. If I may return to that sound, the first movement was simply covered in it, enveloped by it, turned practically purple by it. Music-making is, of course, infinitely more than sound, but it has never hurt the Philadelphians that they have it. Abbado was unobtrusive, basically content to let these experienced musicians play.
As the performance unfolded, it was hard—hard for me—not to compare what Abbado was doing with what Christian Thielemann, the young German conductor, had done with the New York Philharmonic several weeks before. (Thielemann programmed Brahms One as well.) Abbado’s reading did not have as many inspired and throat-grabbing moments—but neither did it have as many strained or failed ones. It was a steady, sort of standard reading, and none the worse for it.
The Philadelphia forces were never less than their elegant, lush, and tasteful selves: and yet there were passages—particularly in the last movement (aside from the “hymn”)—in which one would have appreciated a bit of an edge, a bite, a growl. Everything was so rounded and loving, and this is not the entire story of the Brahms First.
The Welsh bass-baritone Bryn Terfel is one of the most popular singers in the world, and for good reason: he is loaded with voice, musicality, and personality—of such things, singing stars are made. His Carnegie Hall recital was done with his regular accompanist, Malcolm Martineau, who had just been heard with Barbara Bonney.
A striking and varied program began with a Schubert set, led off by “An Schwager Kronos.” Here Terfel was very big, indistinct, and a little bluff—a weakness of many low male singers. “Heidenröslein” revealed another weakness, one of long standing for Terfel: a refusal to sing a song relatively straight. This little piece was full of odd hesitations, as though someone were trying to type on a balky Olivetti. Slow songs—“Meeres Stille,” for example—Terfel tends to sing very, very slowly. He has great faith in his ability to sustain such tempos. But I hope that one day he will deign to speed up a little: we, the listeners, sometimes lose the line—of both the music and the words—and we all know that he can breathe. “Erlkönig,” which ended the set, was adequate, but hardly terrifying or mortifying, as it might be. It occurred to me that it’s just possible that Terfel is too likable—forever likable—for such a song.
After the Schubert came a cycle that Terfel seems to have made a specialty: Vaughan Williams’s Songs of Travel (using poems by Robert Louis Stevenson). The opening song, “The Vagabond,” was strong and thrilling (and The Vagabond is the title of a Terfel album of English art songs, with Martineau). “The Roadside Fire” was surprisingly fast and rough, for such a dreamy, lyrical song. “Youth and Love”—with which Janet Baker used to break your heart—was sung beautifully, but not especially spiritually or philo- sophically. It actually bordered on the operatic and stentorian. And the closing “I Have Trod the Upward and the Downward Slope” was also rather big for such a gentle farewell: though, at the end, Terfel gave us a little head voice on a D—glorious.
It may be that this cycle, unabridged, is a bit long for the typical audience. But Terfel sings it exceptionally well and characteristically, as he must know. It is a particular pleasure to hear him sing in English, for he is a splendid singer in this, his native language. One of the Stevenson poems begins “Bright is the ring of words/ When the right man rings them”—which certainly applies.
Speaking of language, Terfel displayed excellent French in three Duparc songs, as well as sensitive and refined singing. The Shakespeare songs of Roger Quilter are not, in my view, so fine as the Shakespeare songs of Gerald Finzi (which Terfel, along with every other British singer, also sings), but our bass-baritone handled them nicely.
Truly powerful was his presentation of three of the “Old American Songs” arranged by Aaron Copland. (These are the songs once associated with William Warfield, then most closely with Marilyn Horne, who sang them—it would not be too much to say—definitively.) “The Little Horses” was gorgeous; “At the River” was spellbinding; and “Ching-A-Ring Chaw” was full of character.
Closing the printed program was a new song-cycle by Jake Heggie, the young San Francisco-based composer who is writing for everyone and his brother, and whom everyone and his brother wants. Heggie is often called “conservative,” by which critics mean that his music honors such quaint habits as harmony and melody. But whether conservative or not, this new work—The Moon Is a Mirror (with texts by Vachel Lindsay)—is sadly ordinary and forgettable.
Terfel, however, is not. Of his encores, the most stunning was a little, quiet Welsh song, with which the singer held the entire auditorium rapt. While in New York, his main activity was to star as Falstaff at the Metropolitan Opera. But he is a greatly satisfying recitalist, whose superstardom, we should say once more, is earned.
On the subject of singing stars: David Daniels has been a sensation for several years now, both because of his unusual category—countertenor—and because of his prowess in it. In the beginning, one might have thought that Daniels was something of a fad—or the dominant figure in a fad—but he has shown staying power. This is a power built on musicianship, his rare instrument aside. Daniels, a South Carolinian, was the marquee performer in a recent series of New York Philharmonic concerts, led by the English conductor Paul Daniel. (This made for a slightly confusing program and evening: Daniels was the countertenor; Daniel was on the podium.)
First, however, came a piece for harp and orchestra, Debussy’s Danse sacrée et danse profane, one of that composer’s most engaging works. Orchestras enjoy programming it, and harpists, naturally, don’t complain. This concert’s soloist was probably the best-known harpist in the world, if such a statement is not too ridiculous: that was Nancy Allen, for many years a full-time soloist, now principal harpist with the Philharmonic (an atypical career course). Her playing was lovely, deft, and noble, like the work itself.
With David Daniels, the first thing to assimilate is the shock of that voice: that womanly sound coming from a man, though a sound containing virility. Normally, Daniels, like other countertenors, can be found singing Baroque opera, in particular Handel, where the male alto is in greatest demand. Daniels has made a great impression in Giulio Cesare and other operas around the world. His Handel recordings are among the finest on offer.
With the Philharmonic, however, he sang two famous sets of French songs, Les Nuits d’été of Berlioz and Cinq mélodies populaires grecques of Ravel. Here Daniels was perhaps making a statement, saying, “I, like other singers, can sing anything, and I want the entire repertory available to me” (and no repertory is vaster than that for voice). He made his case, too. The Berlioz was thoroughly convincing, with Daniels almost always producing a beautiful line. Everything was tastefully phrased, and the singer’s French was superb. He is one of those who exude pleasure in singing.
He owns, as the world agrees, a fabulous instrument, and it is quite expressive. Expressive of what? Anything, really, but notably of longing, resignation, and quivering excitement. Only in “L’Ile inconnue” did this instrument seem underpowered, with Daniels scanting some of the rapture and swell of the piece.
To the Ravel songs, Daniels was especially well suited. He displayed in them color, exoticism, and a kind of markedness—musical markedness. I might point out that the Philharmonic’s program and notes defensively and somewhat risibly translated the beloved closing song—“Tout gai!”—“Everything is Joyous!”
The evening’s symphony was the Beethoven Second, a brilliant work (a Beethoven symphony, after all). Paul Daniel is the music director of the English National Opera, and obviously a man of experience and competence. He is tall and thin, and he is given to somewhat abrupt and jerky movements. His gestures are almost always extremely emphatic—and yet this did not seem to bring orchestral precision or cohesion. The Beethoven, in addition to being pedestrian, was rather loose, careless. The Larghetto did not have its ethereality, and in some bars it was clumsy and thumping. The Scherzo had energy—but, overall, the performance did not rise above the routine.
Let it be said, however, that the horn playing was spectacular, with principal Philip Myers firing on all cylinders. And the countertenor and harpist had done well. From a couple of hours in a concert hall, that is probably more than one has a right to expect.
