SEEN AND HEARD INTERNATIONAL

Striding on to the stage, looking like a malevolent version of Al Murray’s Pub Landlord, Florian Boesch launched into the almost operatic Der Wanderer, D489. It was an audacious choice with which to start this programme for this difficult song is hard work both for the singer to interpret and the audience to listen to. But Boesch knew what he was doing and delivered a storming performance full of angst. It was followed by two further wanderer songs – D649 is a more relaxed utterance, in which the wanderer is accompanied by the friendly moon and in D870,  he sings of his envy that the moon will always have a home but he will never settle in one place. The two Heliopolis songs are, like Der Wanderer, full of drama and event, with some hope finally appearing at the end of the second. Throughout this first group Boesch displayed every facet of his art, from the barnstorming D489, through the wonder of D649 to the anguishedrage of D753. What a voice this man has! And what a variety of tone colour he employs in his interpretations.

The second group of songs brought a little respite. The delightful An die Leier, where the singer can only get his lyre to play love songs and not the heroic ballads he craves, and Memnon, in which the warrior king dreams of returning to happiness, showed the romantic and restrained side of Boesch’s art. We were back to full blown despair and torment however with Gruppe aus dem Tartarus – a wild vision of the suffering of the damned – and the great setting of Goethe’s Prometheus returned us to the opera stage and found a huge performance from Boesch:  his declamation of the final lines was truly hair–raising –

Hier sitz’ ich, forme Menschen         Here I sit, making men,

Nach meinem Bilde,                       In my own image,

Ein Geschlect, das mir gleich sei,     A race that shall be like me,

Zu leiden, zu weinen,                     That shall suffer, weep,

Zu genießen und zu freuen sich,       Know joy and delight,

Und dein nicht zu achten,                And ignore you,

Wie ich!                                        As I do!

Here was great vocal acting which, quite rightly,  brought the house down.

The final group of four songs brought some calmer music, but no less troubled commentary.

The previous two recitals in this series, by John Mark Ainsley and Katarina Karnéus, were superb, featuring singing without peer, but this one was something very special. A great voice weaving its magical spell over some of the greatest Lieder ever written. Did we let him go without an encore? Of course we didn’t, we wanted more and Boesch delighted, not a word one could use for the onslaught of emotion and rage he had unleashed upon us earlier, with a most gorgeous interpretation of the Wanderers Nachtlied.

As I walked out of the hall the only words I heard spoken by the members of the audience were superlatives: magnificent, excellent, unbelievable. No sentences just breathless words.

But I must not forget the excellent work undertaken by Roger Vignoles at the piano. He understands the concept of a real partnership, not just soloist with a pianist, and he was with, and for, Boesch in every bar.

Don’t miss the broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 14 May.

Bob Briggs


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