|
|
|
|
|
BBC Music Magazine, April 2014 |
Hilary Finch |
|
Schubert - Winterreise |
|
If
you expect something of a Winterreise drama from this dramatic tenor, you
might be a little surprised. Jonas Kaufmann is a grey, spectral figure in a
white-on-white landscape. From the unusually gentle, hushed footfall of
Helmut Deutsch's piano opening, to the final flicker of a spent life-force
in Der Leiermann', this is one of the most deep-frozen, numb Winter Journeys
on disc.
It's also one of the most beautifully sculpted and
articulated. Within the slow tempos, bleached colours and deep resignation
of this reading, there are telling details which are there to be searched
out: the way Deutsch complements Kaufmann's responses with tiny nuances of
rhythm and metre, touching hidden pain points (listen to 'Wasserflut'); the
fragile hypersensitivity expressed within the wanderer's identification with
the falling leaves of 'Letzte Hoffnung'; the vulnerability he reveals in his
discourse with the crow; the hallucinatory quality of the final two songs.
Anger is only rarely glimpsed. It's as though, Hamlet-like, this protagonist
has to make a huge effort to will himself to action at all.
An
unexpected Winterreise, then, and one which reveals its treasure only
slowly, and on repeated listenings. It doesn't move me as do recordings by
two other great tenors, Werner Güra and Christoph Pregardien — but it
fascinates me, as an immaculately achieved intellectual exercise and musical
artifact.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|