What do people dream about when they attend a song recital by a prominent singer?? Hope for a concert on the edge of perfection? This is what you will get if you are fans of christian gerhaher, as the opening night of the festival "lied& lyricism" just under a week ago in the landestheater has proven. Or are you looking for the orphic magic of song par excellence? Then you are at the right address with thomas hampson, as the final evening of this year's festival at the landestheater proves.
Mahler to schonberg
With songs from mahler to schonberg, hampson and his piano partner wolfram rieger fascinated his audience, some of whom had come from far away. "Poetry& lyricism", the license plates of the cars parked on the coburg castle square prove it, is long noticed far beyond upper franconia.
Cleverly composed program
Thomas hampson's singing is not the kind of art that has to exhibit itself in order to attract attention. This already begins with the selection of the works. Hampson's recitals are characterized by cleverly composed programs that often illuminate connections, but never seem didactic. The departure into the modern era of mahler's "wunderhorn-songs to early songs of webern and schonberg's "expectation results as it were incidentally.
Songs after poems by richard dehmel
and in passing it also becomes apparent how short the way is from hugo wolf's goethe songs (among them "wer sich der loneliness results") until the new viennese school of arnold schonberg can actually be.
Six selected songs based on poems by richard dehmel make it very vividly comprehensible that there are indeed points of contact between zemlinsky and early webern.
Wolfram rieger is the personification of many virtues of exemplary song composition on the piano. He never hangs in the foreground and yet is always highly attentive to the scene. With his playing, rieger seems to open up sound spaces quite naturally.
"The shield guard night song
Rieger's music is always finely differentiated in dynamics and articulation. With a nuanced touch, he elicits a dazzling fulle of tonal colors from the flugel. His piano tone is clearly outlined even in pianissimo. At the same time he is – despite the completely opened piano lid – never too loud, never forces thomas hampson to force. So it deserves the special applause that hampson directs at it at the very end.
Fulle of timbres
The finely differentiated fulle of tonal colors becomes fascinatingly horbar in the first part with songs by gustav mahler. The orchestrally conceived variety of colors of these songs conjures up rieger seemingly at ease. And thomas hampson sings these songs after texts from "des knaben wunderhorn" with an untrustworthy sense of style, as they are probably meant to be – as vivid little scenes, which nevertheless never turn out operatic. This applies to the "song of the persecuted in the tower" as well as for "the shield guard night song or "revelge.
Supple art of phrasing
Thomas hampson's lyrically colored baritone immediately captivates the audience with his warm timbre. His supple phrasing, his precise treatment of the text and his clear articulation make his voice a flexible instrument of intelligent, always stylistically confident shaping. But this is only a very rough description of hampson's art. For the technical means are in fact only means for him – means of shaping. Behind this, however, there is a creative power that naturally knows how to keep music and text in balance.
Living expression
The mabstab of this singing is not sterile perfection, but rather the living moment – that moment when lyrics and music in a song meet in a way as if they were just created by the art of the interpreter.
Enthusiastic applause
But how does hampson manage to create these magic moments? Is it his art to form wide swinging vocal arcs with finely differentiated dynamics excitingly from the first to the last note?? Is it his flair for subtly nuanced timbres? Or is it his infallible sense of balance between the outer intensity of singing and the inner intensity of expression??
It's really nice to be back here in coburg"
At the very end the singer becomes a chatting charmer. "It is really nice to be back here in coburg", says hampson and immediately looks a little into the future: "i hope that it will really work with ,lied& lyricism' goes on like this. You're so nice to me that there's already another invitation. We are already talking about 2015."
Of course, hampson knows exactly what the city of coburg has in common with song and poetry: "what would a song evening in coburg be without a text by ruckert??"
Three encores
And so there are enthusiastic applause after hugo wolf's "anakreon's grave" two ruckert songs by gustav mahler: "blicke mir nicht in die lieder" (don't look at my songs) and "i breathe a linden scent".