In terms of their musical subtlety and the complex interaction between words and notes, the songs of Hugo Wolf offer some of the greatest challenges in the entire lieder repertory. All the more remarkable, then, was the success of the 21-year-old German soprano Anna Lucia Richter, who took over this Wigmore recital at very short notice from the more experienced Julia Kleiter. Impressively, not a single item on the programme had to be altered.

She shared this first concert in a series devoted to Wolf’s substantial songbooks – here settings of Goethe and Mörike – with the tenor Christoph Prégardien, whose honed skill with this material showed in his ability to define a song’s mood in a short space: the spiritual certainty of Gebet, the swagger of Ritter Kurts Brautfahrt, and the dreamy concentration of Sankt Nepomuks Vorabend were all spot on. But if Prégardien’s lyric tenor is on the dry side for the nightmarish sweep of Der Feuerreiter, pianist Julius Drake shirked nothing of its virtuosic breadth, and both singer and accompanist tore into the boisterous Genialisch Treiben with gusto. Indeed, Drake’s eye for characteristic detail in Wolf’s tricksy accompaniments was an asset throughout.

Richter, meanwhile, developed before the audience’s eyes. Understandably a little nervous at first, her delicate soprano gained in confidence and colour during the course of the evening. Even in her earlier groups, the innocence of Die Bekerhte was captivating and her coy shepherdess in Die Spröde refreshingly artless. Allowing more flesh to infuse the tone later on, she explored Neue Liebe with touching insight and reached real intensity in Wo find ich Trost?, showing a true lieder singer’s instincts in making so much of her vocal silence in the song’s lengthy postlude. It’s a safe bet that we shall be seeing more of her in the future.

Mark Berry, seenandheard-international, 11.1.2012

This first in a series of concerts in which the Wigmore Hall will present the songbooks of Hugo Wolf offered much to savour, despite the late replacement of the indisposed Julia Kleiter by Anna Lucia Richter. For a singer so young – I cannot imagine there have been many vocalists who made their Wigmore debut at the age of twenty-one – Richter performed more than creditably. However, there were times when not only her lack of experience but also the youth of her voice showed. Problematic intonation at the beginning of her first song, ‘Der Knabe und das Immlein’ was doubtless a matter of nerves, yet her overly playful delivery of the rest of the song suggested an excessive if understandable desire to sound – and to look – ‘characterful’. There were times when the winsomeness became a little wearing. Enunciation was generally excellent: a necessity in Wolf’s songs, though still worthy of proper acknowledgement. However, it was not always clear that she knew what to do with the words; in this recital, she was, after all, dealing with Mörike and Goethe. ‘Intensity’ was a little too effortful in ‘Die Bekehrte’, the overall impression – at least vocally – anything but erotic. ‘Neue Liebe’ was simply too operatic for a fine specimen of the Lied, whilst ‘Wo find ich Trost?’ simply needed a more fully developed voice, a Kundry even, for its extraordinary text properly to register. I was tempted to say that Richter would have been better off leaving ‘Ganymed’ to Christoph Prégardien, then recalled that, rightly or wrongly, Wolf considered it to be a woman’s song.

Nevertheless, with Prégardien, we stood on much surer ground. Highlights included a heartfelt ‘An die Geliebete’, with a powerful climax upon ‘ewiger Genüge’ and wonderful use of the head voice upon the poet’s smiling of the stars, and truly Bergian expressionism in ‘Die Feuerreiter’: ‘Hinterm Berg, hinterm Berg rast er in der Mühle!’ The cold ride to the grave in the latter reminded one, moreover, that expressionism looks back to Schubert as well as forward to the Second Viennese School. Likewise the changing moods – ‘Frühlingstraum’ from Winterreise came to mind – of ‘Denk’ es, o Seele!’ and the haunted rendition of ‘Seufzer’. Another aspect of the tenor’s artistry was displayed in the ballad delivery of ‘Ritter Kurts Brautfahrt’: here narrative thrust issued forth both purposeful and meaningful.

To stop there, however, would leave us with an unsung as well as non-singing hero, for Julius Drake’s performance was perhaps the finest of all. Whilst his companion struggled somewhat in ‘Der Knabe und das Immlein,’ Drake’s piano part left us in no doubt from the very first bars that Wolf was knocking upon the door of early Schoenberg: the kinship to the op.2 songs is remarkable. The chimes of ‘Elfenlied’ struck both terror and wonder into the heart, whilst the difficult progression from darkness to light in its successor song, ‘Begegnung’, was judged well-nigh perfectly. Wolf’s piano writing in ‘Der Feuerreiter’ is positively Wagnerian, and so it sounded here, yet it also sounded thoroughly pianistic. Echoes of Schubert’s ‘Der Leiermann’ in ‘Die Bekehrte’ were powerfully yet subtly conveyed. If the odd stitch were missed in the interlude before the final stanza of ‘Ritter Kurt Brauutfahrt’, that is more or less the only criticism I can muster, and it is a minor one at that. ‘Karwoche’ benefited from a keen awareness of the piano part’s proximity to Strauss. Moreover, I could not help but wonder whether ‘Zum neuen Jahr’ – the only vocal duet – was performed with full awareness of Liszt’s delightful solo piano suite, Weihnachtsbaum. It certainly sounded as if it were, and it came as no surprise to read afterwards that Drake is recording the complete songs of Liszt for Hyperion. On this evidence, it should prove an invaluable collection.