EIF: Gerald Finley and Julius Drake
Old College Quad
Today’s concert at the Old Quad is a highlight of this Festival. Gerald Finley and Julius Drake have worked together often in this repertoire, and their professionalism and musical excellence shine through every note they perform. They make us hear as if for the first time two of the best-known works in the repertoire so that we share the words, music and feelings of these three young German Romantics, Heine, Schubert and Schiller.
The first Dichterliebe songs are short, with just a few lines of text, and they are performed without a break. They are expressions of lost love, and as their mood varies from hope to despair to determination so does Finley vary the texture of his voice, reduced in volume in the first song, but full-voiced and resonant in Im Rhein. Musically the endings of some songs are unresolved providing an impetus into the next one. The heavy chords of Im Rhein develop into the loud piano part of Ich grolle nicht the sequence’s best-known song, which becomes an anguished cry.
In quieter songs, Finley sings directly to the audience in the front, giving a sense of intimacy, while he pitches his voice to the back of the arena for the more forceful declarations. During the second lockdown Finley showed his adaptability as an artist when the Royal Opera House’s ‘Ariodante’ had to be changed at short notice to a performance in an empty theatre. As King of Scotland he exuded calm authority, getting to grips immediately with that odd acoustic which bothered other singers. He does the same here, indeed both he and Drake work subtly and collaboratively as well, as if they were in the Queen’s Hall.
Later in the cycle, the narrator’s moods sometimes contrast with music: the jolly wedding dance accompanies some desolate reflections; the narrator’s quiet recollection of his lover’s song is sung against an equally quiet but dissonant piano part. The texts become longer, with pauses now between songs. An Eden is imagined in the second-last song – “if only I could go there, I would be happy” - says the poet.
Six more songs by Heine in settings by Schubert form part of Schwanengesang (Swan Song), the collection of his last songs, which isn’t a narrative sequence like the earlier cycles. Of the six, Das Fischermädchen, harks back to the youthful hope of Die Schone Mullerin. Das Meer and Die Stadt both conjure up misty watery landscapes, with rippling accompaniment. Der Doppelganger, which ends the sequence, is a song of terror in which the narrator sees his double outside the lover’s house and relives his own anguish. Finley’s expressive lower register is heard here to the full for the first time.
Finley and Drake are rapturously applauded, and we have an encore. I guessed it in advance and so may you. It’s ‘The Pigeon Post’, the last song Schubert wrote, not by Heine, but by Seidl. This gentle piece with its romping accompaniment provides balm after some searing emotions.
A wonderful concert – it’s why we need festivals!
