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Jordan Hall, New England Conservatory, Boston
Thursday, 24 March 2011, 8pm

Matthew Polenzani (tenor)
Julius Drake (piano)

Schubert
Die Schöne Müllerin

Encore

Schubert: Im Abendrot

Click to hear an interview and live performance with Matthew and Julius  on WGBH radio

What the critics say

Jeremy Eichler, The Boston Globe, 28 March 2011

Tenor’s flair enlivens Schubert’s tale of heartbreak
Mahler’s famous comment that a symphony must contain the entire world might be borrowed to summon the capaciousness of Schubert’s greatest song cycles. In “Die Schöne Müllerin,’’ the frame of course is extremely compact but the emotional range is vast within this tale of a young man falling and failing in love with the miller’s daughter. Schubert’s exquisitely drawn anatomy of heartbreak places fierce demands on even the most capable singers.

On Thursday night in Jordan Hall, for his Celebrity Series recital debut, the lyric tenor Matthew Polenzani surveyed much of this work’s journey with tonal beauty and a sense of dramatic flair honed over his years of performance on the operatic stage. It was a rare opportunity to hear this accomplished singer, frequently spotted in the Met’s lavish productions, in a more intimate performance setting. Partnered by pianist Julius Drake, he managed to meet many, though not all, of the high expectations raised by this recital.

From the first measure of the opening song, Polenzani was completely in character, conveying the jaunty carefree innocence of the journeyman poised for adventure. Later he aptly channeled the surging frustration in “Am Feierabend,’’ the tripping urgency of infatuation in “Ungeduld,’’ and the anguished intensity of “Die böse Farbe.’’ His well-controlled and sweet-toned tenor delivered many moments of loveliness all the way through the death-haunted final songs of this cycle, thoughtfully capped here by an encore: Schubert’s timeless “Im Abendrot.’’

All of this said, I couldn’t escape the feeling that Polenzani was approaching these songs from the outside in, as a deft stage actor using the tools he has refined through years of operatic performance to guide him into this daunting song repertoire. What was missing was a master recitalist’s ability to vocally color and shade this material from within the core of the musical line itself, to fuse words and music into a single conception, and to capture not only the emotional highs and lows of this cycle but its infinite gradations of longing.

Drake’s playing shared some of the same strengths and limitations, beautifully matching Polenzani’s concept but still in search of that final degree of subtlety and inner imagination that can make the difference between a good Schubert recital that brings pleasure in the moment and one that haunts you long after its final notes have died away.