Intermezzo

Mark Padmore brings home Winterreise

Mark Padmore / Julius Drake - Wigmore Hall, 21 May 2008

Mark Padmore made the point in his excellent programme note - as reproduced in the Guardian - that 'Winterreise starts almost where Die Schöne Müllerin leaves off'. I don't see as much in common as that suggests, and I wonder if Padmore really does either, because his approach to tonight's Winterreise bore little relation to his Schöne Müllerin of a couple of nights before.

What made the most difference was his total commitment and confidence. The other night he'd hidden behind the loveliness of his voice for much of the cycle. But here, he had a clear idea of where he was going, and not even the odd slipped note could divert him.

This was a Winterreise of neurosis punctuated with ferocious self-loathing, not so much a journey as an unchecked torrent of despair, brought to a stuttering lull in dawning self-knowledge at Der Wegweiser before continuing to its bleak and bitter end.

Although Padmore was in fine voice, he made beautiful sounds very sparingly, limiting them to the more wistful and reflective moments like Der Lindenbaum and Frühlingstraum. The effect was all the more telling for its rarity. Elsewhere he underlined mental instability with explosive dynamic contrasts, almost shouting lines like the last one of Die Wetterfahne, 'Ihr Kind is eine reiche Braut' - this was heartfelt fury, not the sneering dismissal it's often portrayed with. Sincerity is so much harder to convey than irony, but this is the course Padmore chose, and he succeeded.

Julius Drake provided spirited and equally strong-willed accompaniment. Indeed there was a moment of tension right at the start in Gute Nacht when Drake seemed to be pushing on while Padmore pulled back - if this was intentional, it was inspired, because it really sounded as if they were about to fall apart. Reviewers never seem to find any fault with Drake's playing. Unlike them, I sometimes find Drake's own firmly-expressed ideas, his interventionist style, to intrude on a real sense of partnership. But paradoxically, that's his strength as well. His idiosyncratically powerful contributions to Rast and Täuschung were not only radically different from the conventional but entirely in keeping with the boldness of Padmore's interpretation.

Their final song, Der Leiermann, sounded, quite properly, like the last song at the end of the world.

Peter Anders made one of the greatest Winterreise recordings with Gerald Moore in 1945. The voice is less beautiful than Padmore's, and the style more operatic, but the existential despair is all there:

Gute Nacht:

Die Wetterfahne:

Der Leiermann:

Alice Coote's unforgettable journey

Alice Coote/Julius Drake - Wigmore Hall, 28 March 2008

Schubert - Winterreise

Very few women have tackled the manly Winterreise successfully - Brigitte Fassbaender, and, memorably, Christa Ludwig are the only ones I'm aware of. And to add to the pressure on Alice Coote, tonight's performance, the first of two over the weekend, was being recorded.

Her performance tonight was completely idiosyncratic and entirely Alice, utterly spellbinding.

She swept through the entire 75 minutes with bare seconds separating each song, no pauses for breath, water or recomposure, turning the 24 songs into an uninterrupted torrent. This was not an intellectual exercise in laying each song in turn on a velvet cushion of considered response, but a revelation of the emotional truth underlying whole cycle.

Any blurring of the individual identity of each song was recompensed in the blinding intensity of the performance. Resisting any temptation to break the mood, the often jauntily-taken Die Post was in her hands cuttingly ironic, the illusory repose of Der Lindenbaum exposed as the bitterest of despair.

Alice Coote's voice is not merely an instrument, it's almost an orchestra in its own right. The core is a luscious velvety mezzo of great beauty, but we heard little of that tonight. The range of colour and expression she can extract is staggering, and she deployed it fearlessly. Not all of the risks worked - she can conjure something forceful and screechy, most effective used sparingly, like black in a painting. Here she daubed it on too liberally in the earlier part of the cycle.

No stranger to a trouser or two on the operatic stage, tonight Alice went for an all-black Liza Minnelli-ish look - black satin mini trench belted over narrow pants and a sparkly low cut vest.  I mention this not merely in the interests of fashion. Alice Coote is an instinctive, almost compulsive, actress, and we would have got a different performance in a dress. Lurching forward, one hand in the piano, or twisted into some gawky pose or another, she cut an awkward, arresting, but entirely unselfconscious figure.

Julius Drake was an unintrusive and solid support, his role tonight very much a secondary one, no flourishes and no extended postludes, the piano symbolically on its shortest stick. As they left the stage after the final applause, she clutching the obligatory bouquet, he the wine bottle that the Wigmore Hall supplies to performers of the masculine gender, she made to grab his bottle. All that singing must build up some thirst......

Incidentally, I wasn't surprised to see a music stand - many performers need that crutch, regardless of how well they know their material - but I was surprised how often Alice referred to it.

Alice Coote and Julius Drake visited Radio 3's In Tune on Thursday to perform a couple of songs and discuss Winterreise. Here is the programme (their bit starts about 10 minutes in) - available online until Thursday.