Repeats

Just about over a week ago we went to Milton Court to hear Biss & Padmore do, inter alia, Schubert's Schwanengesang. See reference 3. While earlier this week, we went to the Wigmore Hall to hear Vogt & Bostridge do the Schwanengesang again. Furthermore, in a programme, almost identical to that noticed near thirty moons ago at reference 1.

Tried the wine of the month in the basement bar, an Italian white. Rather good.

New style of flowers, more green and white than usual, but which looked well enough when the lights went down.

Moving onto to the/this recital, it seemed to us that Bostridge's voice, while perhaps not as strong as Padmore's, had a greater range of expression and was deployed with a much greater range of volume, with more very quiet bits. He was also much more mobile, both as regards face and body. He seemed to have a much more intimate relationship with both the piano and the pianist, inter alia, better capturing the original, almost domestic, setting for this kind of singing. One can see why he might have thought the staged, Zender version noticed at reference 2 was a good idea.

We rather liked Vogt's rather loud and brash style. It seemed to balance the tenor line well. Also, another Ipad user - something which seems to be getting more common. Confidence in the things is building up.

Being slightly further back at row J, rather than the row F at the Court, was not a problem. And we sat next to a lady from Amsterdam who told us that she knew a lady who knew Haitink. Put him up, rather than danced with him.

Yuja Wang, dressed in a short red dress and draped over a piano had finally vanished from the programme, her job taken by gentleman pianist, also from China. Another child prodigy.

We were not altogether sure about the wisdom of the repeat beforehand, but in the event it worked very well indeed. The Schwanengesang had improved with age, as it were. Moved to the point of getting out the Bostridge book about 'Die Winterreise'.

Our first quibble was the tacking of 'Die Taubenpost' onto the programme at the last minute, a song which on the first occasion had been tacked on as an encore. To our mind, you need this song at the end for the cycle as a whole to end in the right way, for the despair and the tension to be broken. But either put it into the programme proper or do it as an encore - not as something in between with a loose sheet popped into the programme. And certainly without a Brahms encore - no doubt a good song in its way, but out of place here.

Our second, was the batting order. Breaking the Schwanengesang into two halves by poet with Beethoven in the middle worked well enough - but I think we prefer our Schwanengesang done in one take.

PS: I had forgotten that Beethoven was the inventor of the classical song cycle, with this Op.98. 'An die ferne Geliebte'.

Reference 1: http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/last-stand-at-wiggers.html.

Reference 2: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/winterreises-old-and-new.html.

Reference 3: http://psmv3.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/back-at-court.html.