This is a very good idea for a recital disc. William Berger’s
programme, based around a recital at the 2011 Lucerne Festival,
links a disparate range of songs associated with the night,
ostensibly tracing the narrative of the sleepless night of a
man obsessed with his beloved. As you can see from the track-listing
below, the songs are grouped together by time, beginning at
19:30 with Mozart’s Abendempfindung, proceeding
through the grim watches of the night with Wolf’s Um
Mitternacht and Liszt’s Oh! quand je dors,
and ending with the more optimistic world of Strauss’s
Morgen at 06:00. It isn’t airtight, but it’s
a good idea and it makes a stimulating programme.
Unfortunately, however, I’m not convinced that Berger’s
is the voice to carry it off. His singing, to me, sounds pale
and often emaciated, as if he lacks the confidence in his own
material. To my ears he often seems to be searching for the
tone rather than revelling in it, as if feeling his way into
the repertoire rather than essaying it with confidence. He sounds
solid enough - all the notes are undoubtedly there - but there
is no ring, no richness, no sense of cresting a wave. He is
best at the bottom of his range; the middle can seem directionless
and vapid, and too often there is an evidently strenuous stretch
to the top notes. In Warlock’s Night he tends to
wobble in the opening monotones, and he even sounds a little
strangled in the melismas of Fauré’s Mandoline.
Furthermore, the voice frequently has a nasal twang and it lacks
the necessary ease for, say, the Sérénade toscane.
I also found it difficult to relax into the gentler songs like
Liszt’s Oh! quand je dors. It’s not that
the singing itself is necessarily effortful: it’s more
that I found the colour of the voice pale and monochromatic.
It’s, frankly, just not to my taste, though I’m
prepared to admit that this might be an entirely personal thing
that other listeners will not share.
No such criticisms can be levelled at Iain Burnside’s
piano accompaniment which is unfailingly sensitive and powerfully
communicative throughout. The dreamy undulations of Mandoline
are a knockout, as is the gently suggestive accompaniment to
Wolf’s Um Mitternacht, to name but two examples.
Simon Thompson
Track-List
19:30
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
1 Abendempfindung
21:30
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
2 Nuit d’étoiles
Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)
3 Le grillon
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)
4 Claire de lune
22:30
Peter Warlock (1894-1930)
5 The Night
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958)
6 Tired
Richard Rodney Bennett (b. 1936)
7 Dream-Song
23:30
Franz Schubert (1797-1828)
8 Auf der Bruck
Midnight
Hugo Wolf (1860-1903)
9 Um Mitternacht
01:00
Wolf
10 Schon streckt’ ich aus im Bett
Fauré
11 Mandoline
Fauré
12 Sérénade toscane
Wolf
13 Nicht länger kann ich singen
03:00
Raymond Yiu (b. 1973)
14 Sonnet (2011)
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
15 Oh! quand je dors
Wolf
16 Und steht Ihr früh am Morgen auf
06:00
Richard Strauss (1864-1949)
17 Morgen!
Encores
Clara Schumann (1819-1896)
18 Der Mond kommt still gegangen
Charles Gounod (1818-1893)
19 Viens! Les gazons sont verts!
William Berger (baritone) 