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EIF Review |
Pat Napier |
Schubert: Die Winterreise, Edinburgh, 16 August 2003
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Winterreise: 16 August
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Queen's Hall |
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16 August
Jonas Kaufmann
Helmut Deutsch
Dressed entirely in appropriate black, with the sunlight flooding into the
Queen's Hall, Jonas Kauffmann settled into Winterreise in light mood
suppported by the piano.
Then, in Gute Nacht's 5th verse - the turning point - both voice and piano
set the developing, sombre, introspective tone by emphasising the
traveller's inevitable expulsion, underscored by the barking of the village
dogs.
Hemut Deutsch's piano accompaniment was very vivid in expressing tiny
details such as the energetice barking of the village dogs, or the gusty,
swirling wind swinging the Weather vane, which helped to illuminate the
effect of the singer's tiny but critical pause before the last two lines of
the Weather vane, where Kaufmann turns the mood around by asking "What do
they care for my grief?"
At the critical point in each verse, Kaufmann's achingly beautiful lyrical
verse turns to an increasingly darker descent into bitterer and bitterer
loneliness paralled by meditations on the winter landscape. But Kaufmann's
traveller is still a young man not yet ready to succumb and staving off
death's sure grip until the very last moment. It was a deeply moving
experience, ending in that always-magical, breath-held, long, long pause.
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