Ian Bostridge and Steven Osborne
Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 15/8/24
Ian Bostridge (Tenor), Steven Osborne (Piano)
For an encore this morning, Ian Bostridge and Steven Osborne performed Schubert’s ‘Nacht und Träume’. It was absolutely exquisite – gentle, quiet singing and a murmuring accompaniment. The capacity audience loved it, as did I. Sadly, that proved to be the only part of the recital that I was able to enjoy, as what went before was not to my taste.
I sang with Mr Bostridge at the very beginning of his career, in concert performances of Berlioz’s ‘Les Troyens’ and Britten’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ with Sir Colin Davis and the LSO at the Barbican in London. We all marvelled at this fresh voiced youth, whose mellifluous tenor and simplicity of singing announced a major new talent.
Fast forward thirty years to this recital of Schubert’s final songs, the so-called ‘Schwanengesang,’ plus four other songs, and what we heard was a mannered rendition, full of anguished looks and strangled vowels. These last songs are not loads of fun, but they still need beautiful singing. The encore proved he could do that, but it seems that he chose to obscure his sound in the pursuit of dramatic fervour.
There were many felicities in the recital, however. The playing of Steven Osborne, Edinburgh’s superstar pianist, was a revelation. Known primarily as a solo pianist, it was a joy to hear him in the role of accompanist, proving once again that great pianists who are able to listen can be great accompanists too. We think of Alfred Brendel, Sviatoslav Richter and, supremely, Daniel Barenboim in this context. I well remember, in my youth, going to the Usher Hall to hear Schubert’s ‘Winterreise’, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Barenboim, one of the seminal concerts of my life. I laughed out loud today when I read in the free sheet programme (incidentally perhaps slightly better than last week?) that Ian Bostridge is “synonymous with the works of Franz Schubert and Benjamin Britten!” May I amend that to Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Sir Peter Pears!
The duo sensibly kept separate the two different sets of songs that Schubert’s publisher cobbled together after his death, the Rellstab songs and the Heine songs. The Rellstab, including the famous ‘Ständchen,’ are very fine, works which Schubert set in a varied way, with a wonderful rippling stream gurgling through the first song and, in ‘Aufenhalt’, one of the most dramatic settings of his entire career. I have sung these final songs many times, albeit considerably lower than Mr Bostridge, and love their expressive possibilities.
The Heine songs are even greater, amongst the finest Lieder ever written, and their world-weary pessimism is a challenge to any singer. However, they must be presented at face value, not mangled out of all recognition, in an attempt to ape the thoughts and emotions of the protagonist. It was revelatory when, in ‘Der Doppelgänger,’ perhaps the greatest of the Heine songs, the singer cries out to his phantom shadow, the Doppelgänger of the piece: “Why do you ape the pain of my love, which tormented me so long ago?” The singer here was so tormented that he forgot to sing well!
It must be said however that the audience was enthusiastic at the end of the recital. Steven Osborne’s playing was mesmerising, and I must complement Mr Bostridge on his commitment, and the fact that all the songs were memorised and delivered direct to us, something which in my view is essential for EIF concerts, but rare these days.
Photo credit: Andrew Perry
