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Recital
23 March 2007
Carnegie Hall (Zankel Hall), New York
Gerald Finley
Julius Drake
Robert Schumann:
· Dichterliebe
o Im wunderschönen Monat Mai
o Aus meinen Tränen sprießen
o Die Rose, die Lilie, die Taube, die Sonne
o Wenn ich in deine Augen seh’
o Ich will meine Seele tauchen
o Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome
o Ich grolle nicht
o Und wüßten’s die Blumen
o Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen
o Hör ich das Liedchen klingen
o Ein Jüngling liebt ein Mädchen
o Am leuchtenden Sommermorgen
o Ich hab’ im Traum geweinet
o Allnächtlich im Traume seh’ ich dich
o Aus alten Märchen winkt es
o Die alten, bösen Lieder
Interval
Charles Ives
o "Ich grolle nicht"
o "Swimmers"
o "The Housatonicat Stockbridge"
o "The Side Show"
o "The Greatest Man"
o "Tom Sails Away"
o "1, 2, 3"
Ned Rorem :
· War Scenes
o A Night Battle
o Specimen Case
o An Incident
o Inauguration Ball
o The Real War Will Never Get In the Books
Samuel Barber
o There's Nae Lark
o In the Dark Pinewood
o The Beggar's Song
· Three Songs, Op. 10
o Rain Has Fallen
o Sleep Now
o I Hear an Army
Encores:
Ned Rorem
· "An Incident" from War Scenes
Charles Ives
· "Memories: a. Very Pleasant, b. Rather Sad"
Wolseley Charles
· "The Green-Eyed Dragon"
Samuel Barber
· "Sure on this Shining Night," Op. 13, No. 4
What the critics say
David Shengold for Opera News, June 2007 , vol 71 , no.12
Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley gave an admirable recital on March 23 in Zankel Hall, featuring resonant, well-inflected and highly satisfying renditions of Schumann's Dichterliebe and a brace of American art song by perhaps its three leading practitioners — Charles Ives, Samuel Barber and Ned Rorem. The only thing discouraging about this inspiring event is that not every seat was filled. Carnegie Hall has a generous student rush policy; where were all of New York's vocal students, who could have learned much from Finley in point of concentration, technical accuracy and interpretive specificity? Sadly, many such budding vocalists seem increasingly only to know (or care) about the photogenic few who they are assured in advertising copy are superstars.
As at his initial New York recital, in December 2002 at Alice Tully Hall, Finley appeared with his frequent collaborator Julius Drake. This must be one of the finest pairings of singer and pianist currently before the public: both perform with a restraint that does not exclude sudden eruptions of passion or fancy, and both have the complete technical arsenal of their instrument at their command. Finley's only recurrent technical fault was a tendency in negotiating upward intervals to land slightly flat and then tune up to pitch. Otherwise, tricky intervals posed no problems for this singer, as his sailing confidently through the potentially perilous third stanza of "Im Rhein, im heiligen Strome" showed very clearly. Drake displayed impressive mastery in the Schumann, both delicate tracery and roiling postludes, only occasionally allowing a touch of melodrama to offset restraint. Finley made the Heine texts extremely clear and showed a range of color rare among today's low-voiced singers. The pair had very definite ideas about pacing the cycle, barely pausing between most songs but setting off others with poignant silence.
Ives's 1899 "Ich grolle nicht" setting made a logical, smooth post-intermission transition into the American songs, calling for skill in legato lines and controlled emotions that further served ideally in "The Housatonic at Stockbridge" and the stunned anguish of "Tom Sails Away." If the rambunctiously set "Swimmers" challenged Finley's projection of words, the fault lay with Ives and not the singer (or Drake). But Finley aced the anecdotal, plainspoken prosody of "The Greatest Man" and "1, 2, 3."
Next came Rorem's "War Scenes," an evocative and moving setting of portions of Whitman's Civil War diaries that, in their grief for the cruel loss of young lives, cannot but seem as timely today as when created in 1969 by Gérard Souzay. Finley's performance honored the legacy of that paragon of style and diction, the cycle's first recorded exponent, Donald Gramm. The Barber selections, masterfully done by both musicians, encompassed a tuneful trio drawn from early songs unpublished in the composer's lifetime, dating from 1925 to 1937: "There's Nae Lark," "In the Dark Pinewood" and "The Beggar's Song"; Finley displayed the full range of dynamics and emotion called for in Barber's "Three Songs, Op. 10" to James Joyce texts.
For encores, bass-baritone and pianist repeated Rorem's "An Incident" to make up for a slight textual lapse in the initial rendition, before turning memorably to Ives's bipartite "Memories," which contrasts two highly differing strains of nostalgia. Next Finley showed his expert line in comic character songs with "The Green-Eyed Dragon," a 1926 Wolseley Charles party piece written for Stanley Holloway. Surely nothing could have topped the ravishing concluding account of Barber's "Sure on this shining night," one of the most beautiful American art songs ever written.
New York Times (Bernard Holland) 26 March 26, 2007
A Vocalist Who Relishes the Poetry
Gerald Finley, who sang at Zankel Hall on Friday night, has a bass-baritone of easy luxury. Mr. Finley must work hard to manage the top of his voice, but manage it he does. Elsewhere in his range there is a welcoming quality. Music is invited in, rather than pursued, and made at home.
Beautiful sound like this has to be imagined before it can be made. Mr. Finley’s sensibilities begin with the pre-eminence of words. Heine’s “Dichterliebe” seemed to arrive an instant ahead of Schumann’s “Dichterliebe,” the poet’s word already fixed in our ears by the time the musical tone arrived. Diction also served Ned Rorem’s “War Scenes,” five songs set with elegance and graceful prosody in the midst of violence. Mr. Rorem makes sure that not a syllable of Walt Whitman’s scathing reportage on war is missed.
The seven Charles Ives items ranged, as Ives’s music is likely to do, from the rowdy to the picturesque to the comic. If Schumann’s famous version of “Ich Grolle Nicht” comes off as a protest song, Ives’s setting has a sweeter, gentler astringency. Then there was the mysteriously beautiful “ Housatonic at Stockbridge,” in both its vocal and orchestra versions perhaps the most satisfying music Ives ever wrote.
Mr. Finley, a Canadian, ended his all-American second half with six Samuel Barber songs: three with folkloric ties and then the Three Songs, Op. 10: grand, demonstrative statements with virtuoso piano parts. They, like the rest of the program, were played by Julius Drake.
The 16 numbers of “Dichterliebe,” with their long, wandering instrumental finale, are not so much songs with accompaniment as duets for singer and pianist: signified is equally shared responsibility. Mr. Drake was splendid in a variety of moods and styles. The audience loved it all.
Bruce Hodges for Seen and Heard
http://www.musicweb-international.com/sandh/2007/Jan-Jun07/finley2303.htm
I came for the Ives, but was seduced by the Schumann. In 2005 Gerald Finley and Julius Drake released one of the finest recital discs of recent years, an all-Ives program on Hyperion. (And Volume II is scheduled for release soon.) So here was an unmissable chance to hear a few of those by one of today’s most expressive singers matched with one of today’s most adroit pianists.
In sixteen carefully wrought parts, Schumann’s Dichterliebe details the mixed emotions of a poet’s adoration for his beloved, from the freshness of the opening “Im wunderschönen Monat Mai” (“In the wondrously beautiful month of May”) to the grittier “Ich grolle nicht” (“I do not complain”) to the final bitter closing before the piano alone ultimately has the last word. Finley pressed through this journey with the keen attention of someone totally devoted, presenting the cycle without breaks, except for a notably long one after “Das ist ein Flöten und Geigen” (“What a Fluting and Fiddling”) as “lovely little angels” are “sobbing and groaning.” It was as if Finley had stepped back emotionally, as if to take stock before further pursuing his thoughts. Throughout the set, Finley’s ability to phrase carefully, sometimes hesitantly, while maintaining character made for a remarkable reading, and Drake was at his side as the best kind of accompanist, far from being in the shadows, as if a best friend were counseling another.
After the break, Ives’ “Ich grolle nicht” begins startlingly peacefully, as if a prayer, but the ending becomes as dense as the conflicting emotions it portrays. Finley continued with an entertainingly chosen set that showed Ives’ immense range from a riveting “The Housatonic at Stockbridge,” with its transcendent piano part, to the melancholic “Tom Sails Away,” with its brief quotation from “Over There.” In between, “The Greatest Man” is a loving tribute to Ives’ father, which Finley infused with precision and humor. Drake almost had the harder role here, given some of Ives’ fiendishly difficult piano work.
Ned Rorem was in the audience, it turned out, for his piercing War Scenes that surely left everyone in the audience slightly chilled. Written during the Vietnam War years, these five stark songs only continue to resonate. How can one not gasp internally, hearing the singer describe soldiers with “legs blown off, some bullets through the breast, some indescribably horrid wounds in the face or head, all mutilated, sickening, torn, gouged out, some mere boys, they take their turns with the rest…” With impressive control and focus, Finley added a hollow gaze out into the audience, making the reading even more upsetting.
The final well-considered Barber set climaxed with his Three Songs, Op. 10 with texts by James Joyce, and as before, Drake leaped into the musical lines with the kind of gusto singers dream about. For encores, Finley began by graciously repeating Rorem’s “An Incident” (after a slight memory lapse the first time around), then completely changed the mood with Ives’ “Memories: A – Very pleasant, B – Rather sad,” with its two emotional poles, not to mention a fine bit of whistling. Things got even funnier with Woolsey Charles’ fractured fairy tale, “The Green-Eyed Dragon,” and then to end it all, with Drake’s liquid backdrop, Finley poured out a passionate “Sure on This Shining Night,” one of Barber’s most irresistibly beautiful creations.
Matthew Gurewitsch, Opera Now, July/August 2007
Gerald Finley took the stage of Zankel Hall, with Julius Drake at the piano. The programme consisted of extended pieces by Schumann (Dichterliebe) and Rorem (War Scenes), plus groups of lves and Harber. The baritone's vocalism throughout was robust yet deeply cultivated; the muscular articulation of the words in itself gave each phrase weight and point. A Canadian, Finley distinguishes between Anglo and American inflections-an exercise of artistry and craft that in many hands can seem fussy but in his somehow makes the material more immediate. As one of three encores, he brought on Wolseley Charles's comic Green-Eyed Dragon, the sort of thing to endear a man to children from three to 103: the music-hall turn of a true class act.