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Director’s Festival Gala Concert
10 May 2003
Wigmore Hall,London
Paul Agnew
Dmitri Alexeev
Olaf Bär
Belcea Quartet
Ian Bostridge
Christine Brewer
Simon Crawford-Phillips
Julius Drake
Anne Evans
Gerald Finley
Steven Isserlis
Graham Johnson
Angelika Kirchschlager
Felicity Lott
Christopher Maltman
Malcolm Martineau
Anthony Marwood
Diana Montague
Philip Moore
Ann Murray
Roger Vignoles
Mark Wilde
Catherine Wyn-Rogers
What the critics say
Tim Ashley for the Guardian, Monday May 12, 2003
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/critic/review/0,,953959,00.html
Rating: four out of five stars
The gala that marked the close of William Lyne's 36 year directorship of the Wigmore Hall ended with what was, to all intents and purposes, a resonant, if discreet, symbolic gesture. Sixteen of Lyne's favourite singers performed Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Music in a chamber version prepared by his successor Paul Kildea. An era drew quietly to its close as artistic control was passed to a new generation.
It was a thoughtful moment, typical of Lyne's career as a whole. A modest man, he has preserved and expanded Wigmore tradition during his directorship, ensuring its status as Europe's leading venue for lieder recitals and chamber music, all done with little regard for personal adulation, though in this instance, standing ovations greeted his every appearance.
Galas are notoriously tricky, hampered at times by stop-start formulas, and by a tendency to slide towards a series of party pieces. In this instance, things progressed seamlessly and the only glitches were last minute changes occasioned by the indisposition of performers, most notably rival German baritones Matthias Goerne and Thomas Quasthoff, whose work Lyne has championed. The party pieces, delayed until the final section, included Felicity Lott, Ann Murray and Catherine Wyn-Rogers camping it up as Gilbert and Sullivan's Three Little Maids From School, and pianist Roger Vignoles singing Bill from Jerome Kern's Showboat with a Fred Astaire voice, the text revamped in Lyne's honour.
Elsewhere, however, seriousness reigned in a programme that emphasised both the power of music and the entrances and exits that mark the progress of human life. Five hours before the Serenade to Music, Angelika Kirchschlager sang Schubert's An die Musik, before passing onto a group of Brahms songs dealing with love and loss. Julius Drake accompanied
Christine Brewer later delivered Elisabeth's aria from Wagner's Tannhuser, greeting "this hall of song" with rapturous exaltation. Olaf Br, the most patrician of lieder singers, gave us Schubert's last song, Die Taubenpost, imbuing its words with regretful irony.
Lyne dedicated part of the second section to "Jonathan Webb, my friend for almost 40 years". It included Ian Bostridge singing Schubert's Nhe des Geliebten, and a new setting by Julian Phillips of Emily Dickinson's There is a Morn by Men Unseen, written for the great Canadian baritone Gerald Finley. The whole evening was a moving summation of Lyne's life and career. He's a hard act to follow - and he will, most definitely, be missed.
Extracts from an S & H Recital Review by Melanie Eskenazi
http://www.musicweb-international.com/SandH/2003/May03/gala105.htm
It was inevitable that the performers would comprise a mixture of generations from the very young, represented by performers such as the Belcea Quartet, through the well established such as Ian Bostridge and on to the veteran such as Anne Evans, the last group providing this – inevitably, given the ticket prices and scarcity of same – predominantly mature audience with ample opportunity for reminiscence. Those oldies can still cut it, though, and most of them gave the younger generation something to think about. In Part One, although it was a sad loss to be deprived of Goerne’s singing of Schumann’s Kerner Lieder, there was still a great deal to relish, especially from Olaf Baer and Angelika Kirchschlager, neatly representing the younger and older generations of singers.
In Quasthoff’s absence it fell to the mezzo to be the first voice of the evening, and she sounded understandably nervous in ‘An die Musik’ but still managed to make this well loved piece sound fresh: with the Brahms folk songs she was entirely at her ease, and gave ample demonstration of why she is regarded as the mezzo soprano in this repertoire. Kirchschlager seems to make it a speciality to perform songs which are otherwise neglected, and ‘Da unten im Tale’ is a perfect example: she sang this seemingly artless little song with the most moving intonation imaginable, and gave expression to every nuance of its bitter message – Julius Drake accompanied her superbly.
Olaf Baer has been a prominent Lieder singer for nearly twenty years now, and I have never heard him sing as beautifully as he did tonight: I have tended to regard him as ‘school-of-DFD-very-pleasant-nothing-special’ in the past, but on this showing he moved me as never before. He was of course given two absolute gems, Wolf’s ‘Benedeit die sel’ge Mutter’ and Schubert’s ‘Die Taubenpost’ but he sang them as though they both needed passionate advocacy: one might wish for greater anguish in a line like ‘Ach, der Wahnsinn fast mich an!’ but the Wolf was otherwise wonderfully performed, every phrase informed with the most exact yet loving art. Lyne programmed ‘Taubenpost’ in honour of Baer’s singing of the three Schubert cycles in 1988, ‘…one of the most memorable events of my directorship…’ and Baer did not disappoint him. Despite one awkward moment when he and Malcolm Martineau parted company for a bar or two, this was Lieder singing of a very high order, the phrasing exemplary, the diction precise, the interpretation emotionally involving without coyness, those matchless closing lines sung with as much tenderness as I’ve ever heard. There are still plenty of seats left for Tuesday’s recital, in which Baer will sing an enticing programme of Brahms, Schubert, Wolf and Frank Martin – highly recommended.
The first part of the concert ended with a somewhat indifferent performance of ‘Auf dem Strom’ by Ian Bostridge, replete with dramatic vocal gesture but lacking in word sensitivity and subtlety: Steven Isserlis provided sweetly flowing lines in accompaniment, the ‘cello sounding at least as noble as the horn can. Bostridge was again much in evidence in the second part, singing Hahn’s ‘Tyndaris’ eloquently but giving a disappointing rendition of one of Lyne’s favourite Schubert songs, ‘Nähe des Geliebten’ – again, plenty of drama but little sense of that aching melancholy with which it should be infused. The most impressive performance in this part was by James Bowman, his Oberon just as unearthly, poetic and mesmerizing as it once was at Glyndebourne – what a pity he was given so little to sing here.
There was plenty more to delight lovers of twentieth, and indeed twenty-first century music in this part, with a fine performance of Finzi’s ‘To Lizbie Browne’ from Gerald Finley and Julius Drake, who also gave the premiere of Julian Philips’ highly evocative setting of Emily Dickinson’s ‘There is a morn by men unseen’ which had been specially commissioned for this concert: an excellent way to demonstrate that the Wigmore looks to the present and future as well as the past. The Belcea Quartet gave a superb performance of Webern’s ‘Langsamer Satz’ to open this part, followed by Paul Agnew with Dowland’s ‘Come again: sweet love doth now invite’ which he sang with elegant, supple grace: then came Mark Wilde with another courtly poet, Richard Lovelace, this time set by William Denis Browne, followed by Christopher Maltman’s glorious singing of Vaughan Williams’ ‘The splendour falls.’
Dame Felicity Lott sang Fauré’s ‘Les roses d’Ispahan’ and ‘Die Forelle’ with her accustomed skills in characterization and idiomatic phrasing, and Lisa Milne had the privilege of performing one of the neglected gems of the song repertoire, Hahn’s exquisite ‘A Chloris’ given in a dramatic, operatic style which seemed to me to be inappropriate for this piece, which can be so moving if sung with unaffected directness – Malcolm Martineau provided eloquent accompaniment. In contrast to all this lush vocal music Dmitri Alexeev gave performances of three Chopin waltzes that were as distant from the usual empty showiness as could possibly be imagined, rich in nuance and elegantly virtuosic.
The third part was generally more frivolous in tone, featuring such delights as Simon Crawford-Phillips and Philip Moore enjoying themselves with ‘Souvenirs de Bayreuth,’ Roger Vignoles stepping out of the role of discreet accompanist and into that of singer with an hilarious ‘message from Sarah Walker’ addressed of course to Lyne, a ‘Gendarmes’ duet’ (Offenbach) from Bostridge and Maltman which was sheer, uproarious joy, and a not-too-cringeworthy ‘Three Little maids from School’ by Lott, Ann Murray and Catherine Wyn-Rogers, who also sang ‘I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls’ quite superbly. Dame Anne Evans contributed a moving ‘David of the white rock’ and Diana Montague a very fine ‘So in Love’ but the ‘star’ of this segment was undoubtedly Christine Brewer, who not only sang ‘Dich, teure Halle’ with breathtaking skill and superb drama, but actually managed to move me very much with Bob Merrill’s ‘Mira’ (from ‘Carnival’) a feat which I would not previously have imagined possible. Her BBC Lunchtime recital this Monday is eagerly awaited.
The musical part of the evening ended, appropriately, with the new director’s own arrangement of Vaughan Williams’ ‘Serenade to music’ in which sixteen singers, the violinist Anthony Marwood, Steven Isserlis, the Belcea Quartet and Roger Vignoles were directed by Matthew Best: sad though Lyne must have been not to have had all his favourites on stage, it certainly was a sight to see so many eminent names on this tiny platform, and they performed this piece with all the fervour appropriate to the occasion. Speeches and presentations followed, the most memorable moments of which were provided by the vulnerable figure of Lyne himself, never the most confident of public speakers, thanking his staff and the Wigmore’s regular audience for providing him with the support he needed to fashion this little place into what Barbara Bonney (who was onstage but did not sing) once called ‘The greatest concert hall in the world.’
The Telegraph, 12 May 2003
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2003/05/12/bmgn12.xml
The fondest of farewells
The longest and loudest ovations here were reserved for William Lyne, whose retirement after 36 years as the Wigmore Hall's director was marked by this five-hour gala. It was a sign of the great affection in which he is held that the hall was packed and everybody stayed the course, from the opening Schubert Rondo to the final presentations and speeches. The audience applauded him vigorously before the music started. By the end, they were on their feet, cheering wildly.
The first part of the concert centred on lieder by Schubert, Brahms, Schumann and Wolf. In the second, English and French song yielded to a poignant moment of reflection. And there was a lightening of the heart in third, launched with the hilarious lampoon of Wagner's "Ring" that Fauré and Messager enshrined in their cheeky Souvenirs de Bayreuth for piano duet, played with a delightfully straight face by Simon Crawford-Phillips and Philip Moore.
Mapping out the rehearsal schedule and running order must have given the organisers hours of fun and frustration, with no fewer than 25 individual artists, a piano duo and a string quartet to accommodate, but the Wigmore's famous backroom efficiency made for a seamlessly dovetailed evening. The array of artists read like a curriculum vitae of Lyne's life, since he made the Wigmore a magnet for such prominent singers as Felicity Lott, Ann Murray, Anne Evans, Christine Brewer, Catherine Wyn-Rogers, Angelika Kirchschlager, Lisa Milne, Diana Montague, Ian Bostridge, James Bowman, Paul Agnew, Mark Wilde, Christopher Maltman, Gerald Finley and Olaf Bär.
Song was the main ingredient here, and with it some of today's leading accompanists. Julius Drake, Graham Johnson and Malcolm Martineau shared the honours, together with Roger Vignoles, who revealed a talent as a singer himself in a gentle, witty song of tribute, to "Bill". There were instrumental interludes, with Dmitri Alexeev in Chopin, Steven Isserlis in two Faure cello pieces, and a reminder of Lyne's shrewdness in making the Belcea Quartet the hall's quartet in residence with its performance of Webern's Langsamer Satz.
The final item was particularly apt. Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Music featured the whole cast in an arrangement by the hall's incoming director, Paul Kildea. And with that we look to the future, while saying the fondest of farewells.
The concert is broadcast tonight on BBC Radio 3 at 7pm.