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Rachmaninov, Hahn and Korngold: Elizabeth Watts (soprano), Phillip Thomas (piano), LSO St Luke’s, London, 22.1.2009 (BBr)

Rachmaninov: Siren’ (Lilacs), op.21/5 (1902); Oni otvechali (They answered), op.21/4 (1902); Zdes’ khorosho (How peaceful), op.21/7 (1902); Ne poy, krasavitsa, pri mne (Sing not, O lovely one), op.4/4 (1890/1893); Son (dream), op.8/5 (1893)

Hahn: A Chloris (1916), La rossignol des lilas (1913), Rêverie (1893), Si mes vers avaient des ailes (1893), Le printemps (1899), Five Little Songs (1915)

Korngold: Songs of the Clown, op.29 (1939), Four Shakespeare Songs, op.31 (1937/1941)


What a delightfully warm programme, in a lovely setting, for a cold lunchtime.The Rachmaninov songs are the unknown treasure of his output – there are 85 of them – yet singers only occasionally give us the occasional one or two so we must be grateful for this little set of five. Watts brought a rapt intensity to them, never over singing but being intent on the line with a perfect turn of phrase. Singing in Russian, perhaps it is the language which has proven a barrier to their wider acceptance, she was equally in the mock eastern flavours of Sing not, O lovely one as she was in the almost erotic ecstasy of Lilacs.

Hahn’s music has a delicacy and more than a whiff of the music hall. The first five songs we heard today were typical of this style, easy going and very palatable, with the hint of naughtiness being rather more refined than that found in much Poulenc. The Little Songs were settings, rather surprisingly in English, of poems from Robert Louis Stevenson’s A Child’s Garden of Verses. They were simple and unassuming pieces which pleased us all. At some point during the performance I suddenly recalled a rather nice story about Hahn. Later in life, when he was teaching at the Conservatoire, he either went, or started to go, bald. To cover this he bought seven wigs ranging from I have just had my hair cut to I need to have my hair cut. This fooled no one and his students were heard to say (depending upon the day, of course), when he walked into the room, “Ah, numero deux, n’est pas?”

Korngold’s two Shakespeare groups – I don’t believe we can call them cycles – are magnificent. My dear master, Harold Truscott, a foremost authority on Korngold and his music, once told me that in his opinion the setting of Come Away, Death, which opens the opus 29 set, was one of the two greatest settings of that poem (the other, he said, was that by Sibelius). He might just be right for there is a quiet, but noble, tragedy to this setting. The other four settings are no less impressive and there is a lot of humour in these songs which were finely pointed today. The Four Shakespeare Songs are tougher music but no less enjoyable, the audience just has to work a little harder at them.

Watts has a fine voice and she knows how to use it – a careful control, intelligent use of vibrato and, with the use of her engaging smile, she could change the tone colour with ease. However, on a couple of occasions she raised her voice a little too much and the sound became strident. Thomas was a very sympathetic partner and when he was allowed to shine he was excellent, displaying a fine use of rubato and colour in the preludes and postludes to some of the songs. However, the piano lid was on full stick and this is too much for a singer at times and although Watts was never drowned out she had to fight it occasionally. Also, Watts accepted her applause with a curtsy – a nicely old fashioned gesture – but if she was to do this 20 or 30 times a night in the course of a recital she is building up big problems for that left knee!

We demanded a little more and the performers obliged with Kurt Weill’s What Good Would the Moon Be? from Street Scene. A lovely end to a lovely recital.This was a BBC Lunchtime recital and it will be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 24 February.

Bob Briggs


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