SCHWANENGESANG
Roderick Williams at Town Hall,
Stratford-upon-Avon *****
A celebration involving depressing songs by a composer knowing
he was dying of syphilis at a tragically early age might seem somewhat incongruous,
but it certainly worked here.
The occasion was the 60th anniversary concert of
Stratford-upon-Avon Chamber Music Society, genially introduced by chairman Tim
Raistrick, and featuring the world-renowned baritone Roderick Williams in Schubert’s
Schwanensang, triumphant examples of the composer’s song-writing prowess after
600-odd under his belt.
Together with his empathetic accompanist Natalie Burcher, Williams
took us on a journey through these settings of tortured texts by two of the
earliest German poets of the Romantic movement, Rellstab and Heine. Initially there
seemed problems of balance between voice and piano, but the ear adjusted in
plenty of time to savour Williams’ silkiness of phrasing, clarity of
articulation, and the richly-weighted accompaniments as Burcher breathed in
empathy with her singer.
The printed programmes provided us with all the printed texts,
but these were superfluous, given the engagement of Williams’ delivery, both vocally
and in terms of body-language, tiny little gestures, flickering eyes, saying so
much. We had joy in Fruhlingssehnsucht, anguished resignation in Aufenhalt,
warm colouring in the famous Standchen.
After Rellstab, it was Heine, Burcher’s accompaniment crisp
and busy in Abschied, Williams spitting out bitter despair in Der Atlas,
phrasing lightly between the registers in Der Fischermadchen, and eventually freezing
us in Der Doppelganger (incidentally, I geekishly wonder if Chopin plundered
the accompaniment here in his “Raindrop” Prelude).
And after this we sensed the ending of this fabulous recital,
and applauded. And cleverly, Williams and Burcher then treated the remaining
song, Seidl’s Die Taubenpost, as the most charming of encores, innocence
fluttering away all the angst.
Christopher Morley