Review Details
MUSIC IN THE UNIVERSITY SCHUBERT: WINTERREISE PAUL TIERNEY Baritone ROGER B. WILLIAMS Piano
Alan Cooper
05 March 2009
KING’S COLLEGE CHAPEL
Following on from their successful collaboration in Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin the stalwart team comprising baritone Paul Tierney with Roger B. Williams, piano, set out to tackle Winterreise, the composer’s second great song cycle based on poems by Wilhelm Müller. The poems of this cycle, probably the greater of the two, were originally dedicated to the composer Carl Maria von Weber to whom Müller was related.
This song cycle has been compared to an opera but for me, this is the nearest that music comes to the novel rather than the opera because its succession of thoughts and images so vividly painted by the words and amplified by the music draw the listener into this world so completely and so intimately that the surroundings of the concert hall melt away and Schubert’s world becomes reality throughout the performance of the cycle.
This was the result of the magic wrought by Paul Tierney and Roger Williams in a performance that I found totally absorbing. This was by far the best performance I have yet heard from Paul Tierney. The tessitura of these songs was particularly well suited to his voice and his upper notes in particular were beautifully clear, transparent and unwavering. Right from the opening song the quality of his singing promised to be really special and throughout the cycle we were not disappointed. Time and again he brought the visions of the poems to life as when the wind blowing the Weathervane in the second song could be heard reflected graphically in Paul’s singing. Here you could almost feel the movement of the vane. Der Lindenbaum seemed to glow with light that came from the bright warmth of the singing and in Die Krähe you could sense the bird circling overhead.
The piano too had a prominent role in colouring in Müller’s words with Schubert’s incandescent music. Rhythm played an important part in suggesting changes of mood as in Die Post to quote but one example and Roger Williams made the harmonies in the piano writing bring out an astonishing range of cold dark colours each one so different from the last. The final song which if sung on its own in a recital has less impact sounded quite devastating heard here in its proper milieu. It took the capacity audience in the Chapel quite some time to regain its equilibrium after the dark journey on which Paul and Roger had taken it, but there was no mistaking the warmth of the ovation which this exceptionally fine performance so richly deserved.