Gerald Finley’s voice and career are in their prime. This recital showed why: power, darkness and intensity in the first, Germanic, half of the programme; lighter-toned simplicity and a touch of the absurd in the Franco-British second half; an unerring ability to communicate in both modes. Finley has got the lot – to say nothing of a top accompanist and collaborator in Julius Drake.

A group of Carl Loewe’s ballads guaranteed a gripping start. These spooky and bloody tales, including the striking setting of Goethe’s famous Erlkönig, proved ideal, since Finley commands the range of different tones that such narratives require, tells a story with sweep and clarity, and can deploy a thunderous bass range at climaxes.

Moving from melodrama to the crown jewels of the recital – six austere Heine settings from Schubert’s Schwanengesang – he started with Der Atlas and closed with the shattering Der Doppelgänger. Occasionally in this group one felt a missed moment of tonal light and shade or felt a strain in the phrasing, but these were vastly outweighed by the overall intelligence of the word painting and vocal resource.

Ravel’s Histoires Naturelles, settings of Jules Renard’s wry animal poems, could hardly have been a greater contrast. Finley is a specialist in French song and he evoked the apparently untroubled worlds of the peacock, swan, cricket, guinea-fowl and kingfisher all with apparent cool, though these are more complex works than they appear. A group of Britten’s folksong arrangements followed, art again concealing art in works of deceptive simplicity. Two highly coloured encores, Ravel’s Chanson à Boire and Louis Emmanuel’s The Desert, brought the house down.

Sebastian Petit, Opera Britannia, 31 May 2010

Gerald Finley returned to the Wigmore Hall with another carefully balanced and exploratory programme. Supremely accompanied by Julius Drake, the two artists seemed perfectly attuned to each other and produced an exciting and rewarding evening.

A group of songs by Carl Loewe tied together by the multiple interpretive demands imposed by the narratives was a thrilling and demanding opening. Loewe was held in high regard by Richard Wagner who pronounced Loewe’s setting of “Erlkönig” to be superior to Schubert’s more famous version. While not wishing to be without either setting I would rate the chill factor in Loewe’s to be higher but prefer Schubert’s monumental accompaniment. However before we came to “Erlkönig” another story of an ill fated meeting with the spirit world opened the group. “Herr Oluf” tells of a knight who, on the way to his wedding, has the misfortune to attract the attention of the Erlking’s daughter. Though he resists her siren call she nevertheless freezes his heart with one touch. Already doomed Oluf makes his way back to his home and retires to bed. When his bride goes to wake him the following morning she finds him stone dead. Drake perfectly set the scene with an atmospheric introduction redolent of magic and mystery. One knows instinctively that this story will not have a happy conclusion. The song requires the singer to play three distinct characters as well as the neutral narrator and Finley ideally delineates the 3 protagonists without recourse to excess or ham. The contrast between the earthbound, dark tones of the unfortunate knight and the cooing, breathy tones of the fairy was remarkable. Still more striking was the chilling change of tone when the fairy condemns Oluf.

“Tom der Reimer”, set to a Scots ballad tells a very similar tale in a different setting. The scene is set at the edge of a brook and Loewe’s opening phrases perfectly conjure up the sparkling waters. The twist in this tale is that Tom is a willing victim and gladly agrees to serve the Elf Queen for seven years. Seven years appears to have been the standard period of enchantment in the 19th century! Loewe slyly leaves the distinct impression that the period of servitude will be a good deal more enjoyable than that of Wagner’s unfortunate Dutchman. In keeping with the Wagnerian connection there were several moments during the song that one longed to hear Finley turn his hand to Wolfram in Tannhäuser or even the titular Holländer. The reckless passion with which Finley’s Tom pledged his love for the Elven Queen was certainly Wagnerian in scale.

“Die wandeldnde Glocke” (The walking bell) differs from the other Loewe songs in the programme in that it essentially a narrated song without delineated lines for characters. However Finley artfully characterised the mother and naughty child and even the scary-comic animated bell itself while Drake’s evocation of the fleeing child was both hilarious and frightening. The cautionary tale is by Goethe but is strongly reminiscent of such child-scaring tomes as Struwwelpeter (a book, as I can attest, guaranteed to give nightmares to any impressionable youngster).

And so to “Erlkönig”. While the introduction is not the bravura pianistic display of Schubert it is certainly both highly charged and unsettling and, coupled with Finley’s jet black tone, fully evoked the storm lashed night. While his painting of the father and the child is similar to Schubert’s Loewe’s characterisation of the Erlking is revolutionary. Instead of Schubert’s seductive, wheedling will-o-the-wisp we are confronted with a calm, measured being, entirely sure of its prey, impossible to avoid or vanquish. From his first utterance one can have no doubt of the child’s fate. Finley was utterly superb in every respect and the penultimate verse containing the final words of King and child was overwhelming.

The final song “Edward” is a dramatic duet for Edward and his mother who, it transpires, has counselled her son to murder his father. Extraordinary in its intensity the song is compositionally decades ahead of its time and is, in many ways, redolent of the supercharged romantic sensationalism that characterises early twentieth century composition. Finally forced to admit his crime Edward turns on his mother with a spine chilling curse which would not be out of place in Elektra or Salome. The song makes huge vocal and dramatic demands on the performers and Finley, despite very slight hints of strain, was triumphant.

After the huge demands and scale of the Loewe songs it was a canny choice to open a Schubert group with his monumental “Der Atlas”. The sense of vast events and epic emotions dovetailed perfectly with the previous group and ensured there was no sense of anticlimax. Finley ably articulated the fury of the trapped Atlas. “Ihr Bild”, with its hymn like opening, came as a complete contrast and Finley brought a hushed beauty to “Um ihre Lippen sich Ein Lächeln wunderbar” (A wonderful smile played about her lips) which starkly contrasted with the drained despair of the final verse. The failure of the piano coda to finally resolve seemed particularly significant.

“Der Fischermädchen” provided a welcome respite from so much angst and Finley brought a beautiful mezza voce to the final verse. But even in this apparently light balata the accompaniment hints at dark depths. “Die Stadt” returned us to Heine’s customary world weary gloom with a boatman surely evoking Charon’s boat to the underworld. “Am Meer” containing the line “Since that time my body wastes” must have echoed the dying Schubert’s own thoughts and Finley gave full vent to the narrator’s despair.

“Der Doppelgänger” is a popular figure in supernatural tales evoking the evil sub-ego that haunts us all. The idea that there is an alternate path or even world inhabited by another “us” remains an obsession for authors such as Pullman even today. The twist in Heine’s version is that the double is in fact the real being – The version of the narrator visible to the people around him as opposed to the fiction that the narrator has built of himself. Finley used the full palette of his voice to convey the horror of the final revelation.

After so much Germanic Sturm und Drang it was a relief to turn to the Histoires naturelles of Maurice Ravel. From the opening bars we are immediately transported to an entirely different sound-world and Finley’s delivery and deportment altered subtly to mark the change of location and style. The deadpan dry sense of humour brilliantly matched Ravel’s lancing of the arrogant alpha male in “Le paon”. As each progressing display of male plumage utterly fails to impinge on his bored mates the unshakeable confidence of the peacock becomes more comical but ultimately rather touching.
Ravel’s pianistic painting of locale is often breathtaking as he suggests the shimmering haze of a summer afternoon in “Le grillon” (the cricket) or the swan shattered calm of the river in “Le cygne”.

Finley and Drake beautifully captured the sense of wonder in “Le martin-pêcheur” as time seems to stand still while the kingfisher rests on the narrator’s fishing rod. In complete contrast the raucous “La pintade”, describing a particularly antisocial guinea fowl, brought the group to a rousing close.

The final group was Benjamin Britten’s deceptively simple settings of folksongs made while in the US during the war. The highlights were a poised “I wonder as I wander” with a glorious hushed final verse and the rollicking tall tale of “The crocodile”. Finley had a slight memory lapse in the final verse but recovered quickly after a prompt from Drake.

Finley gave two encores. The “Chanson a boire” (Don Quichotte A Dulcinée) amusingly traced progressive inebriation but the peach was Louis Emanuel’s “The Desert”. I suspect that the song was originally intended to be taken somewhat more seriously but Finley’s hilarious evocation of the stranded hero, encircling vulture and final rescue was utterly irresistible.

A superb evening and one looks forward with eager anticipation to his Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne.

Richard Nicholson, classicalsource.com

Wigmore Hall has been experimenting with various strategic approaches to the problem of how to position Schubert’s six powerful Heine settings, published after his death as part of “Schwanengesang”, in a recital programme. Gerald Finley and Julius Drake offered a radical solution, preceding and balancing them in the first half of this concert with some Loewe songs, all except one ballads of comparable dramatic intensity. The second half brought a comprehensive change of textual and musical language, reflected in a different mood in the relationship between performers and audience. Spellbound concentration was replaced by mutual enjoyment of French irony and English folksong sentiment and heartiness.

The almost total absence of Loewe from recital programmes outside German-speaking countries is a mystery which takes some explaining. The figure of 400 songs which is normally quoted may be an under-estimate; there can be no doubt that he was extraordinarily prolific. Normally associated with narrative ballads, his oeuvre in the medium of Art Song includes conventional Lieder and humorous songs. One of the latter was represented in this recital by “Die wandelnde Glocke”, a setting of Goethe’s cautionary tale of the boy who prefers to spend his Sundays in the open air rather than at worship and becomes convinced that the church bell can descend from the tower and chase him to church. Finley’s characterisation of the pious narrator and Drake’s depiction of the bell as it waddles in pursuit in the mind of the boy were highlights here.

I have never been as persuaded that Wagner was right in counting Loewe’s “Erlkönig” superior to Schubert’s as I was on this occasion. The latter’s continuous pounding triplets seem crude by comparison with the way Loewe’s shimmering accompaniment creates a ghostly mood. Schubert gives us an unchanging view from a seat in the stalls, rather as early film directors did, before the introduction of alternating long shots and close-ups. Loewe assigns signature music to each of the characters and has their utterances in close-up. Finley enhanced the effect by film-style acting. He delivered the child’s appeal to his father with eyes lifted upwards, while the father himself scanned the surroundings looking for an explanation of what his son had heard. How insinuatingly he articulated the sibilants of the Erlking’s part, each word audible even at a daring ppp. The surprise of his threat to use force and the stabbing discord at the final word, “tot” (dead), here cut short with chilling finality, also have pre-echoes of powerful cinematic techniques. This was all too credible a villain: the Erlking’s trademark arpeggiated climb upward from bass depths to sweet head voice can easily slip into caricature but Finley avoided this trap.

“Herr Oluf” is Herder’s take on the Erlking story. No vicarious seduction of offspring here: the knight faces the devil’s daughter head-on. Finley played her as leering initially, then disdainful when rebuffed and revelling in the promise of visiting plague and sickness upon his kin. The change to dark, solemn music for Scene 2, the re-union with Oluf’s mother, with its ominous groups of three staccato quavers, then the Death Scene with a background of festive music included to intensify the contrast with the grim discovery of his body, was revealed as a master-stroke of tone-painting.

The supernatural in “Tom der Reimer” was a great deal less forbidding in a poem which Loewe has set as more a nursery rhyme than a piece of grand guignol. The poet’s Faustian bargain seemed worth taking on, the seven years of slavery a reasonable penalty for exchanging kisses with one so frank, charming and playful. In Finley’s characterisation Tom was hypnotised from first sight, his declaration of love warm and sincere. Drake’s beautifully graced depiction of the silver bell reinforced the attraction of the “Elfenkönigin”.

Ending the Loewe group with “Edward” was an apt stepping-stone to the Heine songs. The baritone’s part in the increasingly tense dialogue between son and mother demands a range of all but two octaves from A flat below middle C to G and some thunderous declamation. The explosion from both musicians at the moment when Edward admits to killing his father was as shocking as the orchestrally accompanied appearance of a monster in a horror movie. Finley spared nothing in volume as he roared his admission and finally in Edward’s pitiless curse. But his characterisation of the mother’s claustrophobic panic was just as vivid, assisted by Drake’s almost mocking treatment of the repeated downward figure in the accompaniment. I have rarely heard such cheering of the first group in a recital as was aroused here.

Heine’s poems differ in one significant respect from Loewe’s ballads: they re-create subjective experiences rather than relating fictional narratives. Thus the opening of ‘Der Atlas’, potent as it was, remained on the right side of bel canto; the singer’s lament was utterly convincing. Drake’s extended use of the sustaining pedal at the end was sobering. The contrast in ‘Ihr Bild’ between the sunny, smiling face the poet imagines and the reality of losing his beloved was not as incisively defined as most singers make it; it was left to the weight of the accompaniment to express the great burden of pessimism pressing down on the poet. This was one of several imaginative ideas the artists had to offer. Not all were one-hundred percent successful. The key chosen for ‘Das Fischermädchen’ was unusually low, presumably to equalise the darkness of mood throughout the cycle, to which that song’s lilting rhythm and lightly hovering vocal line are an exception. Elsewhere Finley’s dark, resonant lower register was an ideally firm basis for his characterisation.

To launch ‘Am Meer’ Finley chose a mezza voce of calculated poignancy, promising to make the song the saddest, as opposed to the most devastating of the six. A hint of flatness undermined the plan initially but his ability to colour his tone came into his own later in the song: the wail in which he encapsulated the “unglückselige Weib” at the end was piercing. The sound he employed when he recognised his own double in ‘Der Doppelgänger’ was more of a moan, as if he was trapped in stone. All this could be appreciated through the singer’s clear enunciation, though he sometimes overdid the final consonants.

Ravel’s setting of Jules Renard’s animal poems is intended to follow the speech rhythms of the French language and is therefore predominantly smooth and even. The narrator adopts a position of super-objectivity. It is like watching a reality TV show in which little happens, the pictures left to speak for themselves without commentary, while the pianist plies his trade, illustrating by sound alone the movement and activity of the creatures. It seems that the singer has an unrewarding task but Finley proved himself as much a master of this rarefied atmosphere as he is of the theatrical world of the German Romantics. His implied irony at the behaviour of the proud peacock and the reaction of the other birds on a sultry summer afternoon was priceless. His French enunciation seemed a touch more natural than his German and every word could be heard in ‘Le grillon’, even though it started ppp and became even softer! The audience held its breath as much as the fisherman in ‘Le martin-pêcheur’ as he whispered his description of the kingfisher’s short stay on the end of his rod. Conversely he brought ‘La pintade’ to a triumphant conclusion in full voice.

Britten’s folksong arrangements seem to be gaining popularity with recitalists. In this selection Finley had to use all his vivid communication skills to compete with the showpiece writing for the pianist. His wild exuberance in the “Bird scarer’s song” was complemented by the sobriety of “Greensleeves” (nagging off-beat notes in the accompaniment) and the quiet alternation of voice and piano in “I wonder as I wander”. The robustness of Finley’s dramatic baritone was confirmed by his still being at his ringing peak for the final arrangement, “The crocodile”.

Two encores, closely associated with this partnership, were offered, Ravel’s ‘Chanson à boire’ (“Don Quichotte à Dulcinée”) and Louis Emanuel’s “The Desert”, given with all the melodramatic poses of a film from the silent era. This concert, by two musicians at the height of their powers, will endure long in the memory of those who attended it.