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Recital
18 October 2007
Wigmore Hall, London
“Finley's recital at the Wigmore Hall was exemplary in every way.” MusicOMH
Gerald Finley
Julius Drake
This performance was recorded for a Wigmore Hall Live CD, to be released October 2008
Piotr Ilyich Tschaikovsky:
"Serenada Don Zhuana", op. 38/1 (“Don Juan’s Serenade”)
"To bilo ranyeyu vesnoi", op. 38/2 ("It was in the early spring ")
"Sred´ shumnovo bala", op. 38/3 ("In the midst of the ball ")
"Den li zarit", op. 47/6 ("Does the day reign?")
"Pesn’ Min’ony: Net, tol’ko tot, kto znal", op. 6/6 (Mignon's song: “None but the lonely heart")
"Nam zvyozdy krotkiye siyali", op. 60/12 ("Gentle stars shone for us")
"Kak, nad goryacheyu zoloy", op. 25/2 ("As over the burning embers ")
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky:
"Lieder und Tänze des Todes" (Songs and Dances of Death)
Kalybel’naja (Lullaby)
Serenada (Serenade)
Trepak
Palkavodets (The Field Marshall)
Interval
Charles Edward Ives:
"Ich grolle nicht"
"The Swimmers"
"The Housatonic at Stockbridge"
"The Side Show"
"The Greatest Man"
"Tom Sails Away"
"1,2,3"
Ned Rorem
"War Scenes"
Samuel Barber
"There’s nae lark"
"In the dark pinewood"
"Beggar’s Song"
"Rain has fallen", op. 10/1
"Sleep now", op. 10/2
"I hear an army", op. 10/3
Encores
Charles Ives:
"Memories"
· a. Very Pleasant
· b. Rather Sad
Einojuhani Rautavaara:
Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day
Wolseley Charles:
The Green-Eyed Dragon
What the critics say
Keith McDonnell for MusicOMH
http://www.musicomh.com/classical/wigmore-finley_1007.htm
Rating: Five out of five stars
Gerald Finley is one of the few baritones before the public today with whom it's virtually impossible to find fault.
And if you think that's going to change here, then you're sorely mistaken: Finley's recital at the Wigmore Hall was exemplary in every way.
The Canadian baritone will be 48 in January, and is at the peak of his considerable powers, as he showed in his generous recital devoted to Russian and American song.
Whether on the operatic stage, or on the concert platform, he never fails to give his all. In the last few years his voice has taken on a gorgeous chestnut-brown quality, which he uses with faultless musicianship in everything he sings. Very few non-Slavic baritones have the right sound for plunging the emotional depths that are omnipresent in Russian song, but Finley is one of them.
The first half of the evening was devoted to a selection of songs by Tchaikovsky, and Mussorgsky's emotionally gut-wrenching Songs and Dances of Death. The Tchaikovsky deals with unrequited love in its various forms, and here Finley found the perfect balance between the priapic swagger of Don Juan's Serenade, where his climactic top notes shook the rafters, and the introspection of It was in the early spring where he provided a masterclass in how to spin legato phrase after legato phrase, supported by the merest thread of tone.
To say that Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death are bleak would be an understatement. The first song in the cycle is entitled Lullaby, but from the almost atonal, unison introduction the listener is automatically drawn into a sound world of foreboding, brilliantly and evocatively portrayed by Julius Drake. Here Finley had to take on two roles (that of Death and a baby's mother) and the manner in which he bleached his tone as he sang the sinister utterings of Death, yet lightened it almost within the same phrase to portray the mother's growing desperation for Death not to take her child away from her chilled the blood.
Similarly he made each of the ensuing four songs mini-operas in their own right; each having their own sound world – and he rounded off the Cycle with an impassioned rendition of The Field Marshal which deals unsparingly with the horrors of war. After the intensity of the first half, the seven Ives' songs came as a welcome antidote, with Finley particularly reveling in the humour of The Side Show, the melancholy of The greatest man and the sheer silliness of 1, 2, 3. But the light mood was short lived, as Finley picked up the war theme from the first half and delivered a quite shattering performance of Ned Rorem's War Scenes. Written in the late 60s, at the time of the Vietnam War, Rorem sets five segments of Walt Whitman's diary of the Civil War. Written in prose, much of the vocal line is declaimed speech, but this added to the immediacy of the text, with Finley rising to the considerable challenges Rorem asks of him, giving a quite monumental performance of what is a remarkable set of songs.
Finley chose to conclude this wonderfully varied and unsparingly sung recital with Samuel Barber's Three songs Op.10 (set to texts by James Joyce) which provided a wonderful foil to what had gone before, and with bags of tone in reserve, Finley's vocalism here was given free reign, with the climatic cries of ‘My love, why have you left me alone?', pinning the audience to the back of their seats.
Finley's total mastery of the art of singing and Drake's phenomenally versatile accompanying made this an evening that will live long in the memory. And the best news is that it was recorded for the Wigmore's own CD label - and will be essential listening for anyone who believes in the glorious art of song.
Hilary Finch, The Times, 23 October 2007
Rating: Four out of five stars
Gerald Finley will be Covent Garden’s new Eugene Onegin in the spring. When he strode on to the Wigmore Hall platform, for a rare London solo recital, he already looked the part. This, after all, was part of the Wigmore’s Russian season and, broad of shoulder and noble of bearing, Finley launched confidently into a debonair Don Juan’s Serenade, and went on to grip his capacity audience with six more songs by Tchaikovsky.
One of them, of course, had to be None but the lonely heart – and Finley made us feel we’d never heard it before. Very slow, very restrained through its dark vowels, a deep ache spread through the words, words which could have been describing Onegin’s own suffering.
Julius Drake, at the piano, offered a virtuoso prelude and postlude to Whether the day reigns, and his vividly costumed playing made little salon melodramas of each song.
And then Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death. This is quintessential Russian bass/baritone territory; and while Finley, purely physiologically, didn’t have the craggy, basso profundo depths for the chilling voice of Death itself, the unbroken line of pity and compassion that ran through the perfectly integrated registers of his voice (and in perfect Russian) led the heart with compelling intensity from the cradle to the field of battle.
After the interval, Finley, Drake and the audience surfaced into fresher, clearer air. Here were Charles Ives’s Swimmers – so elated with mastery of the “windy waters” that the voice breaks out of song into exultant shout at the end.
Then the calm currents of The Housatonic at Stockbridge, with Drake providing the great river’s glinting surface, and Finley managing the powerful undertow.
Finley’s finest hour was his magisterial and daring performance of Ned Rorem’s prose settings of Walt Whitman’s harrowing War Scenes. And the intensity didn’t let up until after the searing emotional simplicity of a set of Samuel Barber songs.
Then, because the recital was being recorded for the Wigmore Hall Live label, five delicious bonus minutes of encores grave and gay.