Review: Masterful song recital at Festival Drayton Centre
Three outstanding musicians delivered a song recital at Festival Drayton Centre which alternatively tugged at the heartstrings and set pulses racing. Soprano Caroline Taylor, baritone James Atkinson, and their partner at the piano Hamish Brown quickly built a rapport with the audience which was personable and intimate. From there they produced music with such emotional range and depth it was like being at an opera or symphony.
The programme opened with seven ‘lieder’, sung in their original German but introduced with enough context to give them meaning. In Liebesbotschaft, for example, Schubert – ‘The Godfather of Lieder’ – set to music the story of a lover asking a stream to carry a message to his girlfriend and the piano part confidently bore his reassurances down the bubbling brook.
With no costumes or scenery, and with minimal actions (though his eyebrows alone could speak volumes) James brought to life the story of the gallant knight bewitched by an enchantress and trapped in the forest forever. Then a very different spine-chilling effect in Schumann’s Mondnacht as James portrayed a soul flying in the moonlight across a silent land.
In five songs from the great blossoming of English songwriting in the early twentieth century, the trio achieved an even greater emotional impact. Caroline sang Quilter’s ‘Weep you no more, sad fountains’ with a profound sympathy. James’ ‘In Flanders’ by Gurney and ‘To Lizbie Browne’ by Finzi were achingly beautiful.
From the start Hamish had established that he was not so much an accompanist as a recital partner, his piano being an essential ‘voice’ in the whole. This remained the case throughout the second half of the programme which focussed on arias from opera. Here Hamish provided orchestral colour and atmosphere with such skill that during one round of applause he earned himself an unexpected call-out ‘Go Hamish!’ from the audience.
Caroline hit sustained high notes in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Snowmaiden’s aria which were sublime, while James mined the lower register with a hugely crowd-pleasing Toreador’s aria from Carmen. Next came a dip into musical theatre with a charmingly comic ‘Mister Snow’ from Rogers and Hammerstein’s Carousel and ‘Some Enchanted Evening’ from South Pacific. Some enchanted afternoon it was indeed.
The concert ended most appropriately with the romantic waltz duet from Lehár’s The Merry Widow. The trio were called back for an encore and gave a joyfully exuberant ‘Pa-pa-pa-pa-Papageno' from Mozart’s The Magic Flute.
