Reflection
McPherson Recital Room, St Andrews University 16/3/25
Caroline Taylor soprano and Sebastian Issler
A reasonable audience turned up at the spectacular new MacPherson Recital Room in St Andrews Music Centre to hear the relatively recent alumna, Caroline Taylor (soprano), give a most interesting programme of songs with her Swiss accompanist Sebastian Issler. I have been working with Caroline since I was Honorary Professor of Singing at St Andrews University in the 2010s, and have been delighted with her progress ever since, from post graduate work at the Royal Northern College of Music, where she graduated with Distinction, through successful prize winning in such competitions as the Emmy Destin Award for Czech Opera and Song in 2021, and prestigious appearances in recital at Covent Garden, and at Goldsmiths Hall with Roger Vignoles. Caroline won the 2023 Off West End Opera Performance Award for her role as the Vixen in Hampstead Garden Opera’s production of Janáček’s ‘The Cunning Little Vixen’, and she is currently a recipient of the City Music Foundation Award, from the City of London. Her partner in this recital, Sebastian Issler, is the inaugural pianist-in-residence at the City Music Foundation in London, and the audience today was treated to a recital of great poise and beauty by these fine young artists.
The concert started in traditional form with two songs by Franz Schubert, ‘Auf dem See’ and ‘Im Frühling’. Goethe’s poem, describing an outing on Lake Zurich, itself an hommage to Klopstock’s poem, ‘Der Zürchersee’, introduces all the elements of the high Romantic movement – lake, mountains, vines, stars – and Schubert’s setting, comes at the cusp of the transition from Classical to Romantic song writing.
‘Im Frühling’, with a text by Ernst Schulze, dates from 1826, and remains for me one of the most beautiful songs ever written. The tragedy of Schubert’s short life (he was only 31 when he died) is perhaps second only to Mozart in the ‘what if’ stakes. Dying at such an early age, he has deprived the world of myriad wonderful compositions, although, also like Mozart, he was prolific in his writing as a young man, and vast amounts of music remains.
The accompaniment for this song is utterly exquisite, and Sebastian Issler played it to perfection today. Ms Taylor’s lovely lyrical soprano, redolent of her heroine Lucia Popp’s voice, was ideal for this declaration of Romantic love and longing, as Spring gives way to Summer on an alpine meadow.
Next we heard three songs from Rachmaninov’s 12 Romances, dating from 1902, and the lush harmonies and dark vowels of the Russian language transported us to another world, albeit describing similar meadows and streams in late Spring. I hadn’t heard Caroline singing in Russian before, but she seemed at ease with the language.
This augurs well for our recital together at 7.30pm on Saturday April 12th in St Michael’s Church on Slateford Road in Edinburgh, when, accompanied by the wonderful Derek Clark, Caroline and I will be singing song cycles by Mussorgsky and Dvořák. Don’t miss it if you are in Edinburgh then!
The Rachmaninov songs were followed by three songs reflecting the dangers inherent in deep water. Schubert’s early song, ‘Abendbilder’ (Nocturne), is a long meditation on mortality as the poet (in this case, Peter Silbert) contemplates a flooded field from a slightly higher vantage point. In Rebecca Clark’s disturbing setting of John Masefield’s ‘The Seal Man,’ we see the opposite of the Selkie myth, as a young girl is obsessed by a man who transforms on land from seal into man, and who leads her to a watery death. Finally, we heard Liszt’s setting of Schiller’s ‘Der Fischerknabe’(The Fisherlad), where a boy on a lakeside bank finds himself drawn into the depths by a siren voice.
All these eerie songs were superbly performed by Caroline and Sebastian, the singer’s excellent diction and dramatic skills to the fore, as the pianist conjured up watery nightmares to engulf the voice.
The recital ended with a performance of Alban Berg’s ‘Sieben Frühe Lieder’ (Seven Early Songs) from 1905-8. These songs date from the period when Berg was studying with Schoenberg, before both composers reached their serial,12 tone stage, and the influence of Strauss, Wagner and even Debussy are paramount. I am not ashamed to admit that I have never understood the merits of the serial revolution, and these early songs are fascinating in their own right. Caroline Taylor and Sebastian Issler gave a stunning rendition of these songs. The music is right on the cusp of the 12 tone revolution, but somehow a tonal centre remains, and these songs of love, loss, memory and dreams hold our attention magically.
Singing the whole programme from memory is a splendid tour de force from Caroline, my only caveat being that if you are singing from memory, then allow yourself more movement on the podium. Stillness is all very well, but these songs, delving into the deeper recesses of our imagination and psyche, would benefit, in my view, from a slightly more fluid physical response from the singer. I remember how astonished I was 50 years ago, when I first saw Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, the greatest Lieder singer of his, or any other era, sing Winterreise in the Usher Hall, striding around the piano and dominating the area in which he sang.
The performers gave us a fabulous encore in the form of Strauss’s ‘Morgen’, a piece that is indeed all about stillness. I think Caroline is coming into her peak now, and I would not be surprised if we begin to see much more of her in the near future. Congratulations are in order to St Andrews Music Department for inviting her, and Sebastian, to the Laidlaw Music Centre, and I hope to see many EMR readers at our Slavonic Songs Recital on April 12th!
photo credit: Victoria Cadisch
